Miss Julie

[projekktor id=’17990′]

Miss Julie is an adaptation of August Strindberg’s play, written and directed by Liv Ullmann. The film premiered at TIFF last year in the Special Presentations programme. A very small but talented cast star, with Jessica Chastain, Colin Farrell, and Samantha Morton playing the leads and young Nora McMenamy having the only other acting credit as a little Miss Julie.

A country estate in Ireland in the 1880s. Over the course of one midsummer night, in an atmosphere of wild revelry and loosened social constraints, Miss Julie and John, her father’s valet, dance and drink, charm and manipulate each other. She, all hauteur longing for abasement; he, polished but coarse – united in mutual loathing and attraction. By turns seductive and bullying, savage and tender, their intimacy leads to desperate plans and vision of a life together… Unsure if the morning brings hope or hopelessness, Julie and John find their escape in a final act as sublime and horrific as anything in Greek tragedy.

The play does feature some secondary characters but Ullmann chose to keep the focus on the protagonists. “It seemed necessary to me that these three individuals were completely isolated from the outside world. The story takes place over midsummer night, though we never see the festivities. In Strindberg’s play, people burst into the kitchen and perform a grotesque dance. But I was very keen on the complete isolation of the three characters; I had to fight for that.”

Miss Julie is rated PG.