Rating: NR | Runtime: 97 minutes
Release Date: August 14th, 2026 (UK) / October 2nd, 2026 (USA)
Studio: Obscured Releasing
Director(s): Samuel Abrahams
Writer(s): Samuel Abrahams & Miranda Campbell Bowling

Can’t write this stuff. You gotta keep that in.

Shot at the 5,000-acre estate of Somerleyton Hall in Suffolk, England, Samuel Abrahams’ Lady unfolds as a documentary shoot born under false pretenses. Sam (Laurie Kynaston) has been sold on the fact that the project already has financing secured via Netflix, but it’s not long before he realizes his subject, Lady Isabella (Sian Clifford), has manipulated his participation in a desperate attempt to combat a past trauma that has her feeling like she no longer exists.

Rather than only follow that metaphoric loss of identity, however, Abrahams and co-writer Miranda Campbell Bowling make it literal. What starts with her hands and feet soon works its way inwards and upwards to risk Isabella disappearing altogether … and Sam has it all on film. Suddenly this joke of an assignment following a deluded and sad woman around the grounds becomes a potential “once in a generation” story not even Netflix could ignore.

It’s a fun and heartfelt journey that quickly sees its camera operators realizing they can no longer follow orders—not when Sam’s own desperation for success leads him into becoming as integral to the overall narrative as Isabella. How do they interact? How does the line between professional and personal blur? How can an artist ever be objective when their vision of a triumph demands intentionally subjective manipulation?

Clifford is a delight when her Isabella is in control and bending everyone to her absurd whims. Her shamelessness pushes everyone to the brink of awkward uncertainty as far as whether to call her out or go along. When the cracks begin to show, however, she’s as good or better portraying the anguished fear of being alone. That’s why it’s crucial for Kynaston to be just as self-absorbed in his own mission for relevance. They must become each other’s mirror.

The special effects turning Isabella invisible are effective visually and comedically once wardrobe is involved. The documentary style never feels false thanks to the camera operators not letting Sam sabotage their need to capture everything. And the laughs are memorably marked by knowing smiles and dumbfounded silence as events devolve to show two terrified souls searching for external validation instead of finding it from within.

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Sian Clifford in LADY; photo by Korsshan Schlauer, courtesy of Obscured Releasing.