Miss Julie review: an appropriately draining exercise in lusty social discomfort | JDiff 2015

In its journey around the world's film festivals, few critics have thought to wonder why, in Liv Ullmann's sparse adaptation of a characteristically wrenching August Strindberg tragedy, Colin Farrell's valet, despite being raised "out there in the grey wasteland", seems to speak with a Belfast accent. Relocated to Fermanagh, the three-hander is otherwise phonetically sound: Jessica Chastain cuts class as the ascendency heroine; Samantha Morton, as her cook, has the Border vowels down perfectly. It's a small matter.

The film is, otherwise, an appropriately draining exercise in lusty social discomfort. True, Ullmann, whose steady directorial style never moves far from that of mentor Ingmar Bergman, makes no great efforts to open out the play, but Mikhail Krichman's gorgeous cinematography turns Castle Coole into a welcome fourth character. The three excellent principals bounce robustly off one another in a film that repays a degree of emotional investment.