TV MOVIE OF THE WEEK: LADY MACBETH (2017)

****

15, 85 Mins

The sexiest period drama in years.

William Oldroyd’s ‘Lady MacBeth’ (2017) joins last year’s ‘Les Miserables’ (2020) in the league of most misleading film titles. Contrary to its name, this movie is not an adaptation of William Shakespeare’s Scottish morality play about witches, General MacBeth and King Duncan of Scotland. Just like Ladj Ly’s aforementioned film ‘Les Miserables’ is not based on Victor Hugo’s classic nor the West End and Broadway musical it inspired.

Nope. ‘Lady MacBeth’ is, in fact, a British-relocated adaptation of Russian author Nikolai Leskov’s 1865 novella ‘Lady MacBeth of the Mtsensk District’ with the setting moved from Tsarist Russia to North-East England. Once you get over the fact that this movie isn’t Shakespeare, though, Oldroyd’s film will leave you simultaneously swooning and shaken n’ stirred thanks to its sexually charged cocktail of lust, sex and intrigue. It boasts a revelatory central performance from Florence Pugh who fully earns the title of “the next Kate Winslet”.

The year is 1865 and brunette Katherine (Pugh) is caught in a loveless marriage to a bitter and cruel older man named Alexander Lester (Paul Hilton). They live out their days on an estate in rural Northumberland that belongs to Alexander’s father, Boris (Christopher Fairbank). In this marriage, Katherine is made to maintain a strict schedule and is under imposed house arrest by Alexander.

Then, one day, Boris and Alexander leave the estate for separate business matters which leaves Katherine alone with the housemaid, Anna (Naomi Ackie). For the first time in living memory, Katherine is free to explore the local area which alleviates her boredom.

Katherine develops an attraction to one of the local men working on the land, Sebastian (played by an unrecognisable Cosmo Jarvis from ‘Calm with Horses’ (2020)). After setting herself up to meet him, they begin an affair which could potentially cost Katherine her reputation and marriage…

From the outset, this is Florence Pugh’s moment in the sun. She’s a terrific actress who has often been talked about as the inheritor of Kate Winslet’s mantle. And there are certainly times in ‘Lady MacBeth’ where Pugh looks almost identical to Mrs Winslet. She certainly has her elegance, her stature, her stocky build and indeed her comfortability for getting nude. But what she also has is Mrs Winslet’s versatility and good choice of roles, ranging from starring in a wrestling comedy with The Rock (‘Fighting With My Family’ (2019)) one minute and playing Amy March in ‘Little Women’ (2019) the next.

If ‘The Falling’ (2015) was Pugh’s ‘Heavenly Creatures’ (1994) and ‘Little Women’ her ‘Sense and Sensibility’ (1995), then ‘Lady MacBeth’ is her ‘Jude’ (1996) (the 1996 film adaptation of Thomas Hardy’s classic with Christopher Eccleston and Kate Winslet). She has lots of hot sex with Cosmo Jarvis (fantastically muscled and hunky as Sebastian) - in the barn, on the sofa, in the bed. But none of this sex is voyeuristic.

Like in ‘The Favourite’ (2019) and ‘Portrait of a Lady on Fire’ (2020), the sex in ‘Lady MacBeth’ could be seen as a rebellion and escapism from the prim and proper costume drama conventions that so often clog the genre. We’re used to costume dramas featuring men and women in tight frocks and corsets and speaking like pompous gits while turning their noses up at anything overtly sexual or provocative. In this sense, the amount of sex in ‘Lady MacBeth’ is a breakaway from 19th century tradition and decorum that needs to be celebrated and cherished. Champion the nudity!

At times, Oldroyd’s settings are often Dickensian. There’s a segment where Pugh’s Katherine goes for a walk on the moors and near the marshes that could have easily doubled for Magwitch’s escape route in ‘Great Expectations’. It also has a highly colourblind approach to casting with black actors Naomi Ackie and Anton Palmer as housemaid, Anna, and the boy, Teddy. This is the blackest period drama going in a genre that is notorious for whitewashing.

Oldroyd chooses very little music; apart from a slow-building hum that plays during Katherine’s walk in the woods or in the movie’s devastating ending which basically has Katherine sitting on a sofa. The lack of music proves gruesomely effective as it only adds to the realism of the drama. After all, real-life doesn’t have a soundtrack…

But ultimately this is the sexiest period drama in years. It’s not Shakespeare, but it’s full of sex and intrigue and a brilliant performance from Florence Pugh who truly is the “next Kate Winslet”. Fantastic stuff.

‘Lady MacBeth’ is showing on Fri 12th Feb. at 11.20pm on BBC2.