Lady Macbeth (2016)

Oldroyd captures our gaze with every frame and doesn’t balk at the story’s more shocking sections. He means to shake us and does.

Superbly acted and executed, this spare piece of storytelling marks an assertive feature debut for theatre and opera director William Oldroyd.

An impressively stark, narratively ruthless Victorian chamber piece that feels about as modern as its crinolines will permit, William Oldroyd’s pristine debut feature slowly reveals a violent moral ambiguity that needles the mind far longer than its polite period-piece trappings suggest.

With no score and zero levity, Lady Macbeth maintains a constant atmospheric dread. Oldroyd crafts a masterful sense of uncertainty about how far Katherine will go to preserve her dominance.

Lady Macbeth mostly operates within established period conventions, but draws fresh blood from antique material thanks to a sparky cast, subtle nods to contemporary race and gender issues, and a hefty shot of gothic melodrama.