A creative, wonderfully satirical look at how sometimes existing means fading away
I apologize, Sian Clifford, I wasn’t aware of your game.
The actor delivers one of the more wonderfully preposterous performances of a high-society snob that somehow makes me exponentially care for her the more that she’s on screen. Portraying Lady Isabella in Director Samuel Abrahams Lady, she’s a perfect self-foil, one that keeps our attention glued for every moment, both in loathing her and cheering her on.
The film-within-a-film production wants us to know that the expectations put on us, by our environment, by the modern world, and, hell, by the film viewers, aren’t our realities, and shouldn’t be what drive us forward.
It plays out in a mockumentary, and an extremely well-written one that intertwines two characters unwilling to admit that they’re running from a world that props them up. Both are pushing forward with a semblance of purpose but don’t know that they’re really just pawns.
Sian Clifford’s Lady Isabella feels the weight of a world that has presumptive concepts for what a woman needs to be to maintain her “place.” We can feel right away that there’s something missing there; her estate is empty, there are almost no people. As a divorcee she now has to prove that her husband didn’t make her, and that she can still belong in the high snobby British landscape that she’s supposed to be in. She even plans an admittedly purposeless fundraising talent show for kids that she herself intends to enter and win just to prove her level. But, there’s something obviously deeper than that.
On the flip side, Laurie Kynaston plays an up-and-coming director. He’s been “nominated” for awards but never won, and now wants to put out a great, big Netflix piece that will justify this nomination. We even hear him reiterate it’s a nomination in a way that’s almost trying to say “it’s a nomination for now but I’m definitely going to win awards.” It’s almost self-righteous, giving him a bit of a big head that kind of needs to be knocked down.
Neither of the characters actually knows who they really are, they’re just living on what people told them that they need to be. When they meet and interact they’re immediately calling each other out. It’s often oil meeting water, but it’s necessary to show that what they’ve been made up to be isn’t really who they are.
They’re both sad, both lacking something specific.
And that’s maybe best visualized by the fact that if Isabella isn’t somehow in the spotlight then she’s FADING OUT OF EXISTENCE PIECE BY PIECE. It’s a commentary on self-worth, yes, but also about what we place on women in modern culture. They need to be mothers, they need to be homemakers, they need to be understanding of style, they need careers, they need to be (in this case) comedically British. As we start to see Isabella fade away, we realize that it’s because parts of *her* are disappearing, that she *can’t* keep up with the weight on her, especially after we find out about the heartbreaking reason that she keeps up the facade in the first place. If she’s not all of those things, she’s nothing.
I wasn’t expecting sci-fi or magic, and it’s a wild idea here but it’s an impeccable way to present everything that they’re going through, and an easy way to keep the film moving towards its climax and finale, like a visual reminder of how much time we have left.
Lady is a terrific, funny, well performed film that lets us hopefully understand that we’re worth far more singularly than the plurality of what the rest of the world puts on us.
To use the cliche, it has a lot of heart — even if that heart is slowly becoming invisible.
RATING: 4/5
GREAT
This review is based on a Press Screening sent to the Editor and arranged by the Distributor.
