Director William Oldroyd’s elegantly executed debut feature Lady Macbeth may prove to be the sort of quiet breakout for star Florence Pugh that Martha Marcy May Marlene was for Elizabeth Olsen (as opposed to the more explosive entrance that Jennifer Lawrence made in Winter’s Bone. Pugh’s Katherine, like Olsen’s Martha, must entrance the audience instead of simply convincing it or winning it over, and she succeeds, overcoming the need for backstory, sympathy, or even straight-arrow consistency of character. Her version of the lethal Lady is both more passive and more active than her Shakespearean namesake (the story here is an adaptation of the Russian novella Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District): she is more driven to than driving toward her murderous acts, but she also doesn’t waste time trying to convince someone else (e.g., her lover) to do the deed. She is presented with a problem: a wretched husband who will not assist her in her matrimonial duty to produce an heir for her even more wretched father-in-law. She is also presented with an opportunity: an ardent young servant who knows a good thing when he sees it. And so she takes the necessary steps. It’s not a complicated story, but there are complications, both external and internal. And while this is no morality tale, it doesn’t pretend to take place outside the moral universe. It’s smart about evil, especially about the way it tends to radiate. Beautifully, starkly photographed by Ari Wegner. (2016) — Matthew Lickona
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