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The movie featured in today's "Trailer of the Day" for the 2017 Sundance Film Festival bears a familiar name in literature — but the movie's not what you think.
The drama "Lady Macbeth" is not adapted from Shakespeare, but from a 19th-century Russian novella, Nikolai Leskov's "Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk." The story is transferred to Victorian England, centering on young Katherine (Florence Pugh), who is forced into marriage to the son (Paul Hilton) of an industrialist (Christopher Fairbanks), but soon finds her new husband is both abusive and impotent.
When her husband leaves on a long business trip, Katherine begins an intense sexual relationship with Sebastian (Cosmo Jarvis), a hunky farmhand. All this happens under the watchful eye of Katherine's servant Anna (Naomi Ackle).
"Lady Macbeth," directed by British theater director William Oldroyd with a screenplay by Alice Birch, got rave notices when it premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival in September. Many of the raves went to Pugh, a star in the making. The movie will be released by Roadside Attractions next summer.
"Lady Macbeth" will have its U.S. premiere in the festival's Spotlight section. Screenings are scheduled for:
• Friday, Jan. 20, 8:30 a.m., Egyptian Theatre, Park City.
• Friday, Jan. 20, 5:30 p.m., The MARC, Park City.
• Saturday, Jan. 21, 6:30 p.m., Rose Wagner Center, Salt Lake City.
• Sunday, Jan. 22, 3 p.m., Sundance Mountain Resort Screening Room.
The 2017 Sundance Film Festival runs Jan. 19-29 in Park City and at venues in Salt Lake City and the Sundance resort in Provo Canyon.