80
Lady Macbeth begins as a biting tale of female empowerment but slowly reveals itself to be something much crueler. Period pieces rarely feel this contemporary.
What are people saying?
What are critics saying?
58
The Playlist by Bradley Warren
Underneath the dark humor and holistic mise en scène, there remains the nagging suspicion that what is onscreen is — in spite of the film’s best intentions — another patriarchal interpretation of Lady Macbeth.
80
Time Out London by Cath Clarke
Newcomer Florence Pugh is like a lightning bolt, totally electric as Katherine, who’s up there with Madame Bovary or Anna Karenina in the literary heroine stakes.
80
This intelligently scripted and imposingly played costume noir revisits the conventions of Victorian melodrama to comment on modern attitudes to oppression, prejudice and morality.
83
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.
90
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.
90
Screen International by Jonathan Romney
Superbly acted and executed, this spare piece of storytelling marks an assertive feature debut for theatre and opera director William Oldroyd.
91
The Film Stage by Jordan Ruimy
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.
25
It isn't until its final moments that Lady Macbeth turns into the kind of meaningless, mean-spirited, and proudly irredeemable non-character study that likens it to, say, last year's emptily foreboding Childhood of a Leader.
80
The Hollywood Reporter by Stephen Dalton
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.