Lady Macbeth

Lady Macbeth

I really like the recent trend of short, spare, small-budget indie movies (it's certainly a welcome breath of fresh air from all of the two-and-a-half hour huge-budget franchise films) and while I don't love this movie there's still elements that I liked.

The first hour or so is essentially what I wanted The Beguiled to be: a movie about women taking back their sexuality. Katherine, the protagonist, is immediately seen as sympathetic when she's wed to a selfish man who treats her terribly. When he leaves for a few days, Katherine begins an affair with one of the workers on her estate, and because there's that built-in sympathy the cheating feels justified. While the film never gets too graphic or detailed, it certainly doesn't shy away from its subject matter and makes it very clear that Katherine is finally getting what she wants. Watching a female protagonist take control instead of moping around feeling sorry for herself is very satisfying in general, but it's particularly rare and interesting in the case of sexuality. Hopefully there can be more filmmakers that are unafraid to tell this kind of story in the future But again, this is the first hour.

From here the film takes a very dark turn and only gets darker from there. While I understand this is a sort of classic tragedy story, the direction this character goes in somewhat takes away from her journey at the beginning. It becomes less of a feminist tale and more of a lady-going-crazy tale, with the former being what I feel is the more interesting and important story for this time in the world. I would've loved to see a more natural progression of that story, but the tragic version is what they went with so there's not much point in complaining.

Florence Pugh's performance is easily the highlight of the film. She goes through every emotion there is and sticks the landing on all of them. Her character goes from brutalized to commanding to cruel, and she's not only believable through each turn but entirely convincing. She's only 21 and she's crazy talented, so if I don't see more Pugh in the coming years I will be very upset.

Much like the film itself, I'm keeping this one short and spare. See it for Pugh's performance, the cool castle set, and watching a lady go crazy.