Review: Lady Macbeth is an arresting reboot of a 19th Century classic

REVIEW: A free-spirited beauty who is tormented by her husband and father-in-law ... it sounds familiar, but the amoral Lady Macbeth is no classic Victorian victim.

LADY MACBETH (M)

****

Director: William Oldroyd

Starring: Florence Pugh, Cosmo Jarvis, Christopher Fairbank

Running time: 89 minutes

Verdict: Arresting reboot of a 19th Century classic

TRAP a free-spirited beauty in a draughty, isolated mansion without industry or affection and things are unlikely to turn out well.

Nor do they turn out as expected in this raw and visceral adaptation of an 19th Century Russian novel (Nikolai Leskov’s Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District, which in turn was inspired by the Shakespearean classic).

When the film opens, an impoverished Katherine (British newcomer Florence Pugh) has been married off to the dour and lank-haired Alexander (Paul Hilton), son of a wealthy mine owner in brooding Northern England.

Retiring to the marital bedroom, Katherine’s bullied and bitter new husband demands she disrobe, then sexually humiliates her — without consummating the marriage. It’s a brutal introduction to a cold and affectionless new world of spying eyes and creaking floorboards.

Lady Macbeth is an arresting 19th century classic. Picture: Supplied

Katherine’s real tormentor, however, is her father-in-law Boris (Christopher Fairbank), a mean, sour, spiteful old man who demands submissiveness and utter compliance.

The shots of Katherine sitting straight-backed on an overstuffed couch, trussed up in her corsetted finery, so bored she is fighting off sleep, speak volumes.

But this is no classic Victorian victim.

When the men of the house are called away on business, Katherine seizes the opportunity to range freely around the property.

Something shifts, almost on a cellular level, when she surprises a group of estate workers weighing the naked, traumatised black housemaid (Naomi Ackie) in a sling designed for pigs and cows.

Given the circumstances, Katherine’s immediate physical attraction to the belligerent stablehand Sebastian (Cosmo Jarvis) is confronting.

Lady Macbeth is a bodice-ripper. Picture: Supplied

But their intense, lustful Lady Chatterley-style relationship is certainly mutual. An intoxicated Katherine extends her sexual liberation into a more general one, living openly with Sebastian in the house. When Boris returns, she literally gets away with murder. And in this first instance, her actions almost feel vindicated.

Katherine’s second crime might also be explained as one of passion, but her third unspeakable act of transgression simply feels inexorable.

Katherine is not a sympathetic character — she’s far richer and more fascinating than that. And Pugh steps up to the challenge in an incendiary, career-making performance.

Lady Macbeth is a riveting 19th Century bodice-ripper that also manages to canvas issues of power, class, race and gender politics without labouring any of the aforementioned points.

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Originally published as Review: Lady Macbeth is an arresting reboot of a 19th Century classic