Sian Clifford (Fleabag) as a narcissistic and lonely aristocrat in outrageous outfits and a camera crew chasing her through an English mansion are the stars of mockumentary Lady, the feature directorial debut of Samuel Abrahams, which he co-wrote with his partner Miranda Campbell Bowling. The film world premieres Thursday evening at the 69th edition of the BFI London Film Festival (LFF).
Laurie Kynaston (Fool Me Once), who worked with Clifford in BBC drama Life After Life, and Juliet Cowan also star in the movie, which mixes offbeat satire, ridiculous comedy, a healthy dose of surrealism and a warm-hearted exploration of how even the most privileged have the need to feel seen.
Lady Isabella longs to be in the spotlight, and the local talent show Stately Stars offers her the break she’s long desired. “Deluded aristocrat Lady Isabella (Clifford) hires struggling director Sam (Kynaston) to document life at her imposing country estate, Ravenhyde Hall,” reads a synopsis. “When he discovers that the promise of a Netflix commission was a lie, and that Isabella only wants him there to film her taking part in a ridiculously low-stakes regional talent show held at the Hall, he’s ready to quit — until he realizes the narcissistic Lady is, quite literally, turning invisible.”
MetFilm is handling sales on the movie.
Clifford and Abrahams talked to THR about the joys and challenges of shooting the movie at Somerleyton Hall in Suffolk, where The Crown also shot, its timeliness and why we all carry a little bit of Lady Isabella in us.
“Somerleyton Hall is this beautiful stately home that became not just a backdrop, but a character in the film,” Abrahams tells THR. “We wrote this as a contained two-hander, because it’s mostly about two characters. Obviously, they’re also playing off the camera, so that gives you another dynamic. But really, it’s two characters in one location. So that location had to be incredible.”
Importantly, the mansion is a reflection of the Lady and her loneliness. “The location is the answer to the question where this type of character is trapped,” the filmmaker explains. “As a character who has essentially trapped herself in this location, she’s surrounding herself with beautiful things, rich colors and textures, amazing wardrobe. Those are great distractions for her to sort of justify why she wouldn’t leave the estate.”
Abrahams has won two Cannes Lions for his commercials, and his first short Connect was nominated for a BAFTA. It’s no coincidence that Lady Isabella tells Kynaston’s Sam, clearly a tongue-in-cheek on-screen version of Abrahams, that she knows about his BAFTA, leading him to emphasize that it was only a nomination. The filmmaker says it felt like something a person like Lady Isabella would say and focus on. And it also helps establish the dynamic between the two characters early on. “They bring out the darkest and the most beautiful qualities in each other,” he highlights.
How did Abrahams come up with the idea for Lady? “I got lost down a YouTube rabbit hole and then stumbled across the first video post of someone who clearly was aspiring to be an influencer, but hadn’t got an audience,” he tells THR. “It was just really intriguing, because every single decision that she had made in the making of this video was just brilliantly off. It is a bit like Tommy Wiseau’s The Room but on YouTube.”
What did he feel? “Obviously, there’s humor in that. But it was also incredibly endearing,” the first-time feature director recalls. “I just subscribed and then I watched all the new posts. What was beneath it for me was this desire to feel seen by a kind of invisible world that’s out there, which would make her complete,” says Abrahams. “But, of course, that won’t fill the void, and that was the starting point, a great sort of jumping off point.”
The writer-director wanted Lady to feel like the movies he loved watching in the 1990s. “I grew up watching big comedies that had this surreal hook to them, like Groundhog Day and Being John Malkovich,” Abrahams tells THR. “Those kinds of things are essentially a jumping off point. They hook the audience in with this ‘what the fuck’ idea, but then they’re, at the end of the movie, delivering some kind of meaningful, human journey.”
That was what also appealed to Clifford. “It was everything, really — the concept of it, just the originality of it,” she tells THR. “It felt like a real leap for me in terms of the parts that come my way these days. And it’s comedy, but it’s dark and it’s satirical, and it feels very relevant — satirizing narcissism and that need to be seen.”
The actress was quickly interested in exploring Isabella. “I just thought that she was so fun and so bonkers, and I loved her immediately,” she explains. “I feel she’s a really tragic character, but I adore her.”
There wasn’t a single person that Clifford modeled Lady Isabella after. “To be honest, I feel like that’s every human in existence. We’re all so flawed,” she offers. “Her complexity is probably what drew me to her, because I felt there’s so much going on, and that feels very real.”
Abrahams and Clifford hope to not just entertain but also create debate with Lady. “This is something everyone’s talking about,” the star tells THR. “But I’m not on social media. I think it’s a damaging space. I think culturally it’s damaging. I’ve seen how negatively it can impact — particularly young — people.”
After all, on social media can look like everyone else’s life is perfect. “The film is about that relationship we have with our self-worth and how we’re measuring that with what we’re seeing from other people online and drawing comparisons,” Clifford says. “Everyone has a platform and has something to say and has an opinion on something. How is that impacting us as a whole? But I don’t think it’s as on the nose as that in the film. It’s exploring those ideas in a really interesting way.”
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