Lady Film Review

Samuel Abrahams’ feature debut is outlandishly British, but surprisingly personal.

Lady (Abrahams, 2025) follows Lady Isabella, played by Sian Clifford, who takes on a starkly different role from Claire in Fleabag. The film is “dramatic, haunting,” as Lady Isabella describes herself as an artist, but, much like Abrahams’ short Connect (2010), Lady is unusually sincere. The relationship between Isabella and filmmaker Sam (Laurie Kynaston) is serendipitous. Sam arrives at the aristocrat’s home, Ravenheight Hall, unsure why he is there to film a documentary of the Isabella Blow archetype, constantly checking in with his agent to find out why, until he realises that Isabella hired him herself because she liked his picture; it was not Netflix.

After a series of clashes between the two, Isabella starts to turn invisible, and Sam realises the story he now has in his hands: Isabella doesn’t have any herself. But despite Sam’s dollar-sign eyes, they make an interesting, forlorn match together.

Kynaston’s acting seems so improvised that it feels forced, making it hard to believe Sam is actually there to make a documentary rather than just make fun of Isabella. Clifford is spectacular, holding it all together like a one-woman play. She creates a weird but wonderful Lady that even the most anti-aristocrats can’t help swooning for a little bit, with a bombastic personality, an epic wardrobe, and a silently painful story. She reflects an Emerald Fennell character, but one that feels far more authentic.

The film has a Yorgos Lanthimos essence, particularly in the textured score and cinematography, with off-kilter angles, fades and harsh zooms, but it does feel slightly overdone, every other shot, as if to inject the film with some extra quirk.

Isabella’s invisibility appears as a metaphor for age and loss of identity, but it is hard not to feel that it was perhaps unnecessary. Isabella has not left her home in five years due to past trauma, which makes the film seem a little like an aristocrat’s lockdown play. However, it allows Sam to sympathise with the loss of her physical body. He continues to film her (or what’s left of her) whilst she finds her artistic eye; whether it’s through performance art or spoken word. But despite the bizarreness of invisibility, the unexpected moments of the two characters are warm and dulcet, and they allow for a pause amid the rest of the mayhem.

Despite Lady feeling mildly commonplace, Clifford’s remarkable performance leaves no doubt that it will become somewhat of a classic amidst the subgenre of satirising the wealthy and weird.

Lady is out now in UK cinemas.

Where I watched: Cinema 2, Barbican.