Synopsis
Rural England, 1865. Katherine, suffocated by her loveless marriage to a bitter man and restrained by his father's tyranny, unleashes an irresistible force within her, so powerful that she will stop at nothing to get what she wants.
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Cast
- Florence PughKatherine Lester
- Cosmo JarvisSebastian
- Paul HiltonAlexander Lester
- Naomi AckieAnna
- Christopher FairbankBoris Lester
- Golda RosheuvelAgnes
- Anton PalmerTeddy
- Rebecca ManleyMary
- Fleur HoudijkTessa
- Cliff BurnettFather Peter
Recommendations
- 91
The Film Stage
Oldroyd captures our gaze with every frame and doesn’t balk at the story’s more shocking sections. He means to shake us and does. - 90
Screen Daily
Superbly acted and executed, this spare piece of storytelling marks an assertive feature debut for theatre and opera director William Oldroyd. - 90
Variety
An impressively stark, narratively ruthless Victorian chamber piece that feels about as modern as its crinolines will permit, William Oldroyd’s pristine debut feature slowly reveals a violent moral ambiguity that needles the mind far longer than its polite period-piece trappings suggest. - 83
IndieWire
With no score and zero levity, Lady Macbeth maintains a constant atmospheric dread. Oldroyd crafts a masterful sense of uncertainty about how far Katherine will go to preserve her dominance. - 80
The Hollywood Reporter
Lady Macbeth mostly operates within established period conventions, but draws fresh blood from antique material thanks to a sparky cast, subtle nods to contemporary race and gender issues, and a hefty shot of gothic melodrama. - 80
We Got This Covered
Lady Macbeth begins as a biting tale of female empowerment but slowly reveals itself to be something much crueler. Period pieces rarely feel this contemporary. - 80
Empire
This intelligently scripted and imposingly played costume noir revisits the conventions of Victorian melodrama to comment on modern attitudes to oppression, prejudice and morality. - 80
Time Out London
Newcomer Florence Pugh is like a lightning bolt, totally electric as Katherine, who’s up there with Madame Bovary or Anna Karenina in the literary heroine stakes.
