Alan in Belfast: Lady – mid-life crisis as a lonely aristocrat descends into nothingness (Queen’s Film Theatre from Friday 14 August)

Lady Isabella is a woman of a certain age who knows that her public profile – even as a low-level aristocrat – is fading fast. She cuts a lonely figure, rattling around a stately home set on a huge rural estate. Her husband is awol. A housekeeper cooks and cleans but companionship isn’t in her job description.

In a vain attempt to restore her relevance, Lady Isabella hatches a nonsensical plan to win a contest. And she’s hired a documentary team, under false pretences, to profile her attempt at gaining the top prize.

The film Lady begins with director Sam (Laurie Kynaston) arriving up the long driveway to greet Lady Isabella (Sian Clifford, Fleabag’s older sister). The audience watch what’s happening through the documentary’s crew’s camera angles, picking up audio from the lady of the manor and the director who have almost forgotten that they are both micced up. So much of the Lady’s day is spent pouring and slurping alcoholic beverages: soon we’re running through rooms like Anneka Rice on an ice bucket challenge.

Over the 95-minute film, there’s never a moment that Lady Isabella is on screen and she isn’t acting up to the camera. Clifford portrays an exhausted woman who is at her wit’s end. She’s manic and creatively unrestrained, though somewhat unexpectedly, given the large abode, financial worries aren’t on her list of woes. Can her passionate attempt to be seen to matter pay off? And at what cost?

I’ll not spoil the surprise, but a physical manifestation of Lady’s identity concerns soon reveals itself. Samuel Abraham’s feature debut screams out like a giant metaphor but the movie veers off course and explodes without properly hitting this ambitious target.

With Lady Isabella losing her grip on reality, thinly-written director Sam is becoming obsessed with the strain that this vanity documentary project is placing on his reputation. The director’s bonce is permanently adorned with a woolly hat. We quickly learn that it’s keeping his woolly head warm.

As we’re frequently reminded, he was Bafta-nominated but didn’t win. Chronically shy, Sam mostly communicates with his agent via irritating voice notes. The crew’s esprit de corps wears thin and they begin to turn their cameras to capture Sam’s unravelling in parallel with the Lady’s. And it’s hard to feel any empathy towards this second troubled character.

Samuel Abrahams’ script leaves little room for housekeeper Becky (Juliet Cowan, Nikki in This Life) to interrupt the otherwise two-handed scenes between Lady Isabella and her film director muse.

Meanwhile Ricky the Raven watches over everything that’s happening at Ravenhyde Hall. His presence seems laden with a significance that is never exploited.

The film ends up being an exhausting not-quite-mockumentary rather than a poignant satire about a mid-life crisis. As a piece of cinematic art, Lady is a saved by the quality of Clifford’s portrayal of a deranged woman who is not getting the professional help she needs and deserves, and her ability to make you giggle despite the farfetched on-screen hokum.

Lady is being screened in Queen’s Film Theatre from Friday 14 August.