76
Metascore
37 reviews · Provided by Metacritic.com
- 91The Film StageJordan RuimyThe Film StageJordan RuimyOldroyd captures our gaze with every frame and doesn’t balk at the story’s more shocking sections. He means to shake us and does.
- 90Screen DailyJonathan RomneyScreen DailyJonathan RomneySuperbly acted and executed, this spare piece of storytelling marks an assertive feature debut for theatre and opera director William Oldroyd.
- 90VarietyGuy LodgeVarietyGuy LodgeAn 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.
- 80The Hollywood ReporterStephen DaltonThe Hollywood ReporterStephen DaltonLady 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.
- 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.
- 80EmpireDavid ParkinsonEmpireDavid ParkinsonThis intelligently scripted and imposingly played costume noir revisits the conventions of Victorian melodrama to comment on modern attitudes to oppression, prejudice and morality.
- 80Time Out LondonCath ClarkeTime Out LondonCath ClarkeNewcomer 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.
- 58The PlaylistBradley WarrenThe PlaylistBradley WarrenUnderneath 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.
- 25Slant MagazineSam C. MacSlant MagazineSam C. MacIt 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.