Florence Pugh as Catherine in Lady Macbeth – a brutal, chilling and successful drama

LADY MACBETH
Directed by William Oldroyd
Certificate 15
☆☆☆☆☆

Despite its title this extraordinary film is not about Shakespeare’s dark creation but its lead, Catherine, is – as the original Lady Macbeth was described – not “like the innocent flower, but be the serpent under it”.

Set in the 19th century, it is an adaptation of Nikolai Leskov’s novel Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk, and transported to northern England with stunning results.

It is a brutal, chilling and successful drama, both firmly modern in its language and approach, and with an air of realism that confirms this is no wishy-washy period piece.

Catherine (Florence Pugh) has been sold into a marriage, along with a piece of land that we learn “isn’t even fit for grazing”, to the son of a mine-owning family. She is taken to the family pile, a draughty, cold place where servants live in silent fear and she is quickly shown she too is a chattel whose role is only to quietly obey.

Husband Alexander (Paul Hilton), who it is hoped will sire an heir though he appears to find the idea of physical contact with his young bride repulsive, communicates through threats. Its loneliness is accentuated by potential comrade, the maid Anna, (Naomi Ackie) – she brushes her charge’s hair with painful malice and scrubs her back until it is raw.

When Alexander is called away to a mining village across the county, and father-in-law Boris (Christopher Fairbank) heads to London, Catherine is left alone – and it is then that she finds a sense of freedom in the arms of groom Sebastian (Cosmo Jarvis).

Their affair soon becomes open knowledge among those below stairs and Catherine’s passion for her lover, and the life she is desperate to escape from, becomes an all-encompassing motivation that takes an extremely dark turn.

This is a brilliantly told story, not a scene is wasted. The leads are marvellous – Pugh excels, but the creepy Hilton is chilling and believable, while running through every word and movement is an undercurrent both physical and psychological violence.

The Northumberland moors have never looked so beautiful yet so bleak, nor a country house so forbidding.

This is a film about the oppression of women, the viciousness of the class system, and about race, too. To meld such topics into under 90 minutes in such an intelligent and moving way is no mean feat.