MOVIES: REVIEW
BY CHARLES TAYLOR
IF SOME ambitious women’s studies major decided that her thesis would be a movie in which film noir tropes of the femme fatale are married to a denunciation of the patriarchy, the result might be very close to William Oldroyd’s Lady Macbeth. Say this for it: As thesis filmmaking goes, it’s nasty enough to keep your interest, but the pleasure is scant—in part because the filmmaking is so calculated. Every shot is meticulously composed to make its point, with nothing left to chance. It is so calculated that you can see every shock from 3 miles out, and if it weren’t for cold cruelty, Lady Macbeth would have no life at all.