Lady Macbeth (2016)

This 2016 film has nothing directly to do with Shakespeare's character Lady Macbeth, but I wanted to watch it anyway because I heard it was good and I wanted to see more of Florence Pugh, who stars in Midsommar. She is the real deal.

Set in Victorian England, young Katherine is married off to an older man who won't touch her--he just jerks off while looking at her naked. He and her tyrannical father-in-law basically keep her prisoner, but when both have to leave for business reasons she starts getting out into the fresh air, though a maid (Naomi Ackie) isn't trustworthy. In the grand tradition of novels such as Madame Bovary and especially Lady Chatterley's Lover, Pugh begins a passionate affair with a groomsmen. Lots of people will die as a result.

Lady Macbeth is based on Russian short story, and gets his name I suppose because both characters are diabolical, although at first we sympathize with Katherine (but we abandon that sympathy when she goes too far). We don't get any backstory on her, but she is fierce and though treated like property, doesn't tolerate any shit.

The film was directed crisply by William Oldroyd, with a sense of being hermetically sealed--there is no score, so the whole thing exists in a kind of quiet dread. It has nothing of a supernatural nature, but is played like a horror film, and who the monster is changes throughout. It's a fine film, and Pugh is a wonderful talent.