Not waving but drowning

Alicia Vikander is left adrift in a directionless adaptation of Ibsen's fable 'The Lady from the Sea'

- Alice Saville

When hyped directors put their stamp on a classic, they usually pare it back, making heightened emotions surge through a shortened runtime.

But not Simon Stone, the Aussie director behind splashy, celebrity-heavy rewrites of Yerma (2016) and Phaedra (2023). He’s taken Henrik Ibsen’s tragic fable and extended it into something both lengthy and oddly mundane, bloated with new dialogue that namechecks OnlyFans and Nineties rap groups. It’s an unlikely showcase for the talents of a confident Andrew Lincoln (The Walking Dead) and Oscar winner Alicia Vikander, who seems understandably adrift making her stage debut in this directionless play.