Lady Macbeth

As "Lady Macbeth" (2016 release from the UK; 90 min.) opens, we see a young woman (we later learn her name is Katherine) getting married in what looks to be 19th century England. On her wedding night, she is left untouched by her (older) husband. Her father-in-law, also living there, is equally unpleasant. Katherine is utterly lonely and depressed. Then one day, both her husband and father-in-law must go out of town for business. It's not long before Katherine strikes up a torrid affair with one of the groomsmen. At this point we're about 10 min. into the movie. What will become Katherine and her lover? To tell you more of the plot would spoil your viewing experience, you'll just have to see for yourself how it all plays out.

Couple of comments: you may think this is yet another movie adaptation of the Shakespeare play, but in fact this is based on the Russian novel Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District by Nicolai Leskov. I will leave it to the Shakespeare experts to comment how different this story is from Shakespeare's. What I can say is this: the movie is very much story-driven. Things happen, and happen fast, and it doesn't let up! There is hardly any music in the film. Another unusual fact: the movie does not have a title. There are no opening credit, and when the end titles start, it simply says "Based on Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District by Nicolai Leskov", and that's it. (The Katherine character is regularly referred to as "Mrs. Lester" or maybe that should be "Leicester".) The star of the movie for sure is Florence Pugh, an up-and-coming British actress, whom I can assure you we will see plenty more of (she reminds me of a young Kate Winslett). Played by Pugh, Katherine is passionate and ruthless. Last but not lest, the movie was filmed (according to the end titles) in Northumberland, the area just below the border with Scotland, just beautiful.

"Lady MacBeth" premiered at the 2016 Toronto International Film Festival to positive buzz. It finally opened this weekend at my local art-house theater here in Cincinnati, and I couldn't wait to see it. The Friday early evening screening where I saw this at was attended dismally (4 people, including myself), which does not bode well for this movie, considering it was the opening night. That's a shame. Maybe this will gather a larger audience through Amazon Instant Video, or eventually on DVD/Blu-ray. If you like a strong story-driven movie with great acting, you could do a lot worse than this particular "Lady MacBeth"!

Looking at the title, you might think director William Oldroyd's Lady Macbeth is about revenge, lust, murder, and boredom, and you would be right on all counts. Katherine (Florence Pugh), a 19th century teen bride of an arranged marriage to a middle-aged drunk, can't get no satisfaction. Her husband is impotent for starters, and the estate is so forbidding murder would seem to be a required pastime.

Yet, sex is the prime mover here, where she discovers randy groomsman Sebastian (Cosmo Jarvis), and takes him to bed in the long absence of her hubby. Meek black Anna (Naomi Ackie), Katherine's servant, observes the shenanigans, much as we do, unable to change what she sees will be an outcome unpleasant to the core. To the end Anna is faithful to Katherine, a slave to a mistress who is herself a slave to men and convention.

Several archetypal themes arise in this somber, artfully-photographed drama. For instance, one that emphasizes the wages of sin is prominent; another about the subjugated rising against the oppressor; and another about the danger of socially imprisoning smart women in a paternalistic society. A leitmotif also surfaces about the dangers of debilitating class distinctions, which are never a good thing in the long haul.

Ari Wegner's cinematography is portrait-like if considering only the recurring shot of Katherine sitting on her Victorian couch in a consuming dress that seems to deteriorate with each similar shot. Underneath the dress is the corset, so long a symbol of the era's tight hold on women.

Remembering Amma Asante's Belle, I'm pleased to see another art- film treatment of fraught race relations in merry ol' England. That none of this will ever stop is promised in the spawn of the miscreants, children of evil destined to repeat their parents' sins.

Lady Macbeth is an interesting minimalist story of a smothered young woman, whose intensity will lay waste to the social fabric of the estate. In fact, much of the proceedings are Shakespearean with their emphasis on man's weakness in his dominance, a woman's Eve-like ability to lure men into sin, and the pride that inevitably leads to a fall.

Depressing but dramatically satisfying.

I was enthralled by this movie from start to finish. The cinematography and sound were excellent. The complete absence of a music soundtrack except for two notable atmospheric crescendos added to the overall oppressiveness of the story and the location. All of the performances were excellent and the lead was outstanding IMO. The story was in many ways familiar - being evocative of Bronte and Hardy - with its portrayal of Victorian country gentry and the brutality and sense of entitlement that sometimes occurred between the classes but the way the story unfolded frequently surprised me by not following through in the way one might have expected it to. I too would recommend a cinema viewing in order to get the full effect of the landscape and the oppressive silence of the house.

Frances Pugh is the gravitational force of this film; not simply filling the role, but her presence consuming the other characters, the building to which she is confined for most of the film and the shots she inhabits even when silent. In that respect, it's a performance that reminds me of Glenn Close's brilliant turn as the central character in The Wife, a role and film that have more similarities to this than one might first think. That's not to say her performance is greedy - far from it, it has a remarkably understated power; and the rest of the cast act without ego, with great subtlety to all how her to shine in the way in which her role demands. The purpose of the title is only occasionally and vaguely apparent for much of the film, but comes into horrible and brilliant focus in the final act; it's a title the central character earns. But it's the silences that haunt the most and lend this film its creeping power - the background silence of a stately home in the middle of rural northern England; the silence of the house itself; the silence of key characters; and most of all Florence Pugh's silence as she fills the screen, motionless and noiseless in a series of near but not quite identical shots that punctuate the film like refrains, lending a quiet kind of awe to the devastating ending.

I'm not familiar with the Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk short story by Nikolai Neskov (not to be confused with Lady Macbeth by William Shakespeare) which he wrote as a novella in 1865, although it is inspired by the famous play.

the book inspired Shostakovich to write an opera based on it.

Now we have a British film that feels incredibly French (incredibly Michael Haneke, who I think is actually Austrian) to add to its cannon.

It features a career defining performance by Florence Pugh in the title role; although the men are magnificent too (most notably Christopher Fairbanks as the intolerant Father in Law).

If you like Christopher Fairbanks through his Guardians of the Galaxy fame this is not the movie for you as it moves at glacial pace with very little dialogue, virtually no music and a LOT of fixed frames where you are invited to enjoy the cinematography in its most bleak and spartan Northernness.

"It's grim up north" might have been the poster slogan for this movie because, set as it is near the North East of England's colliery land, albeit on the moors (North Yorkshire I'd suggest), it is most certainly grim.

The story is murderously grim too and I'd expect this BBC Films production to be in the running when next year's BAFTA's are handed out with Florence Pugh a shoe in for best female actor.

Slow but sublime with excellent direction from William Oldroyd.