Miss Julie

Mike Figgis has his way with August Strindberg's tragic heroine, and turns the 1888 three-character play into a torrid and surprisingly cinematic chamber piece. It's Midsummer's Eve in northern Sweden, that time of year when the air is thick with lust and madness. As the 19th century winds to a close, an aristocratic young woman is about to take a tumble. Jilted by her fiance, the lovely and slightly unhinged Miss Julie (Saffron Burrows) has been indecorously whooping it up with the servants; her father the Count is away, and his daughter is left at the mercy of her own indiscretions. She recklessly flirts with her father's footman Jean (Peter Mullan), a ruthless s...