Lady Macbeth

One of the strongest British debuts in a while, William Oldroyd’s searing, low-budget drama is sure to establish him as a film director to watch and will make his leading lady Florence Pugh into a star.

She’s flat-out terrific as Katherine, a young woman (still a teenager, we assume) ‘bought’, along with a plot of land, by a wealthy mill-owner type for his son to marry. Although the period is left vague, we’re certainly in the mid-19th century, so this is kind of a traditional period movie but one with a cool edge and a torrent of teen rebellion that turns all such conventions upside down.

I should mention, too, it’s nothing to do with Shakespeare, other than the titular lady in question having a burning ambition to survive and succeed, one that grows in burning intensity throughout the movie until just looking at her face gives you goosebumps.

It’s set in a creaking house on the moors, where everyone has a Geordie accent. The place is done up like an outpost of Soho House, all heritage colours and locally sourced objets, floorboards restored in Farrow & Ball finishes and Shaker-style shutters.

When her husband (Paul Hilton) can’t consummate their marriage, he disappears off on his horse, leaving Katherine in the house on her own, with only servants and the moors for company. Now mistress of the house, she quickly takes a shine to the power – and to the stable boy Sebastian (rugged Cosmo Jarvis), and begins a passionate affair, drunk on abandon and the master’s supply of Fleurie.

The anarchic idyll can’t last long and the insurrection is discovered when thunder-faced paterfamilias Chris Fairbank arrives, wondering where all his favourite wine has gone. But, we discover, Katherine has developed a killer instinct for self-preservation.

Let loose from her corsets, Pugh’s Katherine is a screen animal, quite dazzling in her poise and in masterly control of her face over which she flutters smirks, smiles and murderous looks like a pro. This is only Pugh’s second movie, after a charismatic debut in Carol Morley’s girls’ school hysteria drama The Falling in 2015, but, like the character she plays here, there will be no stopping her now.

Oldroyd, better known as a director of operas, composes each interior shot like an inky period painting and his smart direction allows the wind, the creaks, the ticks and tocks of the house, the crackle of fires and the pouring of tea, to echo around the soundscape like chilling footsteps.

There are black characters, whose race isn’t mentioned, so beautifully and confidently does the film stride along and sweep us up in its atmosphere. It constantly feels daring, new and edgy but doesn’t force any of its subtle innovations on you. Even a couple of melodramatic plot lurches can’t ruffle the film’s feathers nor divert Katherine – and Florence Pugh – from their bewitching destiny. Seriously strong stuff.