Lady Macbeth is a 2016 British period drama film directed by William Oldroyd, from a script by Alice Birch, and produced by Fodhla Cronin O'Reilly; it is the feature film debut for Oldroyd, Birch, and O'Reilly. Based on the 1865 novella Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District by Nikolai Leskov, it tells the story of Katherine Lester, a young woman who rids herself of controlling in-laws to live with her workman lover then secures her place in the landed gentry. The film stars Florence Pugh, Naomi Ackie, Cosmo Jarvis, Paul Hilton, and Christopher Fairbank.
With backgrounds in the theatre, Birch and Oldroyd wanted to make a different kind of British period drama. A lavish production, typical of the genre, was not possible on their micro budget. The story was moved from European Russia to Northumberland, England. Birch focused on the crime part of the novella, set in and around the family's house.
By changing how that ended, she eliminated the punishment part, set elsewhere. Oldroyd's research suggested that the region was more racially diverse in the 19th century than is generally believed today. Colour-blind casting led to diversity in four key roles: in the principal cast Naomi Ackie as Anna and Cosmo Jarvis as Sebastian, and in the supporting cast child actor Anton Palmer as Alexander's ward Teddy and Golda Rosheuvel as Teddy's grandmother and legal guardian Agnes. This added the element of race to the themes of gender and class from the novella.
Lady Macbeth was a minimalist production. The Lesters's house was represented by a small number of sparsely furnished interiors at Lambton Castle in County Durham, and the characters had few costume changes. It was filmed in September–October 2015 using mostly natural light and wide master shots of scenes that were often formally composed in a static frame. The film has an expressionist soundscape of people in the house and nature on the surrounding estate. The only music is an eerie theme which plays after each murder committed by Katherine.
Lady Macbeth had its world premiere at the 2016 Toronto International Film Festival. It first went on general release in Europe during April 2017. The film received positive reviews and two European accolades. At the 2017 British Independent Film Awards, it won accolades for Pugh and Ackie's performances, the screenplay, cinematography and costume design. Lady Macbeth has grossed US$6.4 million worldwide.
