Miss Julie

Jessica Chastain & Colin Farrell: Miss Julie movie 2015
Jessica Chastain and Colin Farrell will star in Liv Ullman’s passionate – near sensationalist – depiction of late-Victorian Ireland, adapted from the August Strindberg Miss Julie play of 1888.
Miss Julie synopsis
An aristocrat’s daughter (Jessica Chastain), Miss Julie attempts to seduce her father’s valet (Farrell) in a rural Irish estate, despite him being engaged to a local girl, played with typical vigour by Samantha Morton.
Miss Julie, August Strindberg: Atypical costume drama reminiscent of Greek tragedy
In Miss Julie, Strindberg saw the end of the nineteenth century as the beginning of chaos, as a revolution of hierarchy where class boundaries were blurring and tradition wilting. The action of the film takes place in almost real time, over the course of Midsummer Night’s Eve, and in the heady summer heat games of sex and class unfold with tension in this atypical costume drama.
Reviews for movie Miss Julie
Early reviews have drawn attention to the impressive performances from the film's leading duo. Farrell is, as always, terrific as John, the stoic valet in parts tempter in parts tempted, while Chastain brings her steely intensity to the part of Julie, and there is something brilliant transgressive in every look, in every breath. Her moments of realisation, of coming to terms with the madness of what she has done, locked in her red bedroom, are as powerful as they are earth-shatteringly real – yet not quite enough to save the film from melodrama once we're in the full swing of its psychosexual diatribe.
The ensuing action plays out like a Greek tragedy as Julie and John unite and divide in savagery and tenderness, attraction and loathing as the film hurtles inexorably towards the sublime horror of its end.
"Fails to wrestle free from its theatrical origins"
Liv Ullman (Miss Julie director), most noted as Ingmar Bergman’s muse, unleashes savagery into this ordered world. The Miss Julie film is underscored by mournful Schubert and Bach, though in many places it fails to wrestle free from its theatrical origins. In large parts it is still frames and dialogue, which however passionately delivered, with however much force, is often static.
Thus latest movie reviews for 2015 suggest much to admire in the film lies in its stand-out performances, that fizz and burst across the screen: Ullman's film is an engaged creation that, though flawed, is still worthy of interest for the impressive talents at its helm.