\n<\/p>\n
\n\tSian Clifford (Fleabag<\/em>) 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<\/em>, 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\u00a069th edition\u00a0of the\u00a0BFI\u00a0London Film Festival\u00a0(LFF).<\/p>\n \n\tLaurie Kynaston (Fool Me Once<\/em>), who worked with Clifford in BBC drama Life After Life<\/em>, 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.<\/p>\n \n\tLady Isabella longs to be in the spotlight, and the local talent show Stately Stars<\/em> offers her the break she\u2019s long desired. \u201cDeluded aristocrat Lady Isabella (Clifford) hires struggling director Sam (Kynaston)\u00a0to document life at her imposing country estate,\u00a0Ravenhyde\u00a0Hall,\u201d reads a synopsis. \u201cWhen 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,\u00a0he\u2019s ready to quit \u2014 until he realizes the narcissistic Lady is, quite literally, turning invisible.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tMetFilm is handling sales on the movie.<\/p>\n \n\tClifford and Abrahams talked to THR<\/em> about the joys and challenges of shooting the movie at Somerleyton Hall\u00a0in Suffolk, where The Crown<\/em> also shot, its timeliness and why we all carry a little bit of Lady Isabella in us.<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cSomerleyton Hall\u00a0is this beautiful stately home that became not just a backdrop, but a character in the film,\u201d Abrahams tells THR<\/em>. \u201cWe wrote this as a contained two-hander, because it\u2019s mostly about two characters. Obviously, they\u2019re also playing off the camera, so that gives you another dynamic. But really, it\u2019s two characters in one location. So that location had to be incredible.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tImportantly, the mansion is a reflection of the Lady and her loneliness. \u201cThe location is the answer to the question where this type of character is trapped,\u201d the filmmaker explains. \u201cAs a character who has essentially trapped herself in this location, she\u2019s surrounding herself with beautiful things, rich colors and textures, amazing wardrobe. Those are great distractions for her to sort of justify why she wouldn\u2019t leave the estate.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tAbrahams has won two Cannes Lions for his commercials, and his first short\u00a0Connect<\/em>\u00a0was nominated for a BAFTA. It\u2019s no coincidence that Lady Isabella tells Kynaston\u2019s 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. \u201cThey bring out the darkest and the most beautiful qualities in each other,\u201d he highlights.<\/p>\n \n\tHow did Abrahams come up with the idea for Lady<\/em>? \u201cI 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\u2019t got an audience,\u201d he tells THR<\/em>. \u201cIt 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\u2019s The Room<\/em> but on YouTube.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tWhat did he feel? \u201cObviously, there\u2019s humor in that. But it was also incredibly endearing,\u201d the first-time feature director recalls. \u201cI 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\u2019s out there, which would make her complete,\u201d says Abrahams. \u201cBut, of course, that won\u2019t fill the void, and that was the starting point, a great sort of jumping off point.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tThe writer-director wanted Lady<\/em> to feel like the movies he loved watching in the 1990s. \u201cI grew up watching big comedies that had this surreal hook to them, like Groundhog Day<\/em> and Being John Malkovich<\/em>,\u201d Abrahams tells THR<\/em>. \u201cThose kinds of things are essentially a jumping off point. They hook the audience in with this \u2018what the fuck\u2019 idea, but then they\u2019re, at the end of the movie, delivering some kind of meaningful, human journey.\u201d<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\u2018Lady\u2019<\/span><\/p>\n \n\tThat was what also appealed to Clifford. \u201cIt was everything, really \u2014 the concept of it, just the originality of it,\u201d she tells THR<\/em>. \u201cIt felt like a real leap for me in terms of the parts that come my way these days. And it\u2019s comedy, but it\u2019s dark and it\u2019s satirical, and it feels very relevant \u2014 satirizing narcissism and that need to be seen.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tThe actress was quickly interested in exploring Isabella. \u201cI just thought that she was so fun and so bonkers, and I loved her immediately,\u201d she explains. \u201cI feel she\u2019s a really tragic character, but I adore her.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tThere wasn\u2019t a single person that Clifford modeled Lady Isabella after. \u201cTo be honest, I feel like that\u2019s every human in existence. We\u2019re all so flawed,\u201d she offers. \u201cHer complexity is probably what drew me to her, because I felt there\u2019s so much going on, and that feels very real.\u201d <\/p>\n \n\tAbrahams and Clifford hope to not just entertain but also create debate with Lady<\/em>. \u201cThis is something everyone\u2019s talking about,\u201d the star tells THR<\/em>. \u201cBut I\u2019m not on social media. I think it\u2019s a damaging space. I think culturally it\u2019s damaging. I\u2019ve seen how negatively it can impact \u2014 particularly young \u2014 people.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tAfter all, on social media can look like everyone else\u2019s life is perfect. \u201cThe film is about that relationship we have with our self-worth and how we\u2019re measuring that with what we\u2019re seeing from other people online and drawing comparisons,\u201d Clifford says. \u201cEveryone 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\u2019t think it\u2019s as on the nose as that in the film. It\u2019s exploring those ideas in a really interesting way.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" 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\u00a069th edition\u00a0of the\u00a0BFI\u00a0London Film<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":28440,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[54],"tags":[16911,16909,1171,1460,6901,16912,16910,4313,16908],"class_list":{"0":"post-28439","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-entertainment","8":"tag-abrahams","9":"tag-clifford","10":"tag-film","11":"tag-interview","12":"tag-lady","13":"tag-lff","14":"tag-mockumentary","15":"tag-samuel","16":"tag-sian"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28439","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=28439"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28439\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/28440"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=28439"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=28439"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=28439"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}