Right now it seems that the world may be at the feet of Florence Pugh, and that she may become the great star of her generation in her own right. He is not yet 30 years old and already has a series of essential films on his resume where she and her work are several of the keys that make the whole a success.
He’s even in a position to save chaotic productions like ‘Don’t worry dear’ from utter disaster. Samples of a capital talent that It already started to leave us speechless a few years ago, when his career was still beginning. For many, Pugh’s name was already a deserved follow-up for her work in the formidable ‘Lady Macbeth’, an interesting adaptation that we can see through Amazon Prime Video (also on Filmin).
kill for what you want
Unrelated to the original Macbeth, although partly inspired by the main female character in Shakespeare’s play, the film adapts a classic novella from the great Russian literature, written by Nikolai Leskov. Pugh leads this version of the play directed by short filmmaker William Oldroyd, who takes certain liberties to expand ideas about ambition, puritanical repression and class.
The action takes place in rural England in 1865, where young Katherine Lester (Pugh) is forced by her father’s tyranny to play the role of wife to a bitter man twice her age. His family is also cold and even ruthless, leaving her isolated and feeling like a complete stranger in her own home.
This repressive environment will provoke hitherto repressed impulses. Katherine will start a passionate sexual adventure with a worker from the family farm. From then on, her desire to covet power and control of her will increase, developing a change of attitude that will lead her to want to get what she wants by all means. The character will go evolving to dark terrain that will put the viewer’s empathy in check.
‘Lady Macbeth’: emotional claustrophobia
Katherine is quite a character full of sharp edges and deep moral complexity. The kind of character that she does not usually generate affinity, especially if she is played by a woman, and that requires an actress of great capacity in all registers to defend it. Fortunately, Pugh finds the perfect pitch every timecalibrating each gesture and the enunciation of each line of dialogue to unravel everything that the character gives of himself.
Added to this is a well-developed and well-measured film, which makes a good study of the protagonist in less than an hour and a half, as well as creating a perfect atmosphere of emotional claustrophobia, which makes the narrative arc of the character logical. Details of interest that appropriately convey the richness of Leskov’s work, and that provide the perfect platform for an actress like Pugh, who launched a stellar career from here. All the keys were already here.