Macbeth in Compton (2026)
Macbeth in Compton had no right to work as well as it does. Shakespeare's bloodiest tragedy, relocated to the palm lined streets of Compton, spoken in full Elizabethan verse but subtitled in the modern slang of the block. On paper it sounds like a gimmick that ought to collapse under its own cleverness inside five minutes. Instead it is one of the most purely enjoyable shorts I have seen all year, and I came out of it grinning.
The obvious touchstone is Baz Luhrmann's Romeo + Juliet, and Page Kennedy, who writes, directs and stars, is clearly working from the same instinct: that Shakespeare belongs on the street corner as much as the stage, and that the language sings louder set against something modern, loud and alive. Compton is a setting I love in cinema anyway, all heat and neon and simmering menace, and the film drinks it in.
The masterstroke is the subtitling. The cast speak Shakespeare's actual text, but the subtitles translate it into present day Compton speech. The effect is genuinely strange and wonderful. I found myself watching it the way I would watch a film in a language I do not speak, the spoken words washing over me as something almost alien while the subtitles told me exactly what was happening. Two registers, the ancient and the immediate, running side by side and somehow lighting each other up. I cannot recall seeing that particular trick pulled off before, and it delighted me every single time.
It opens, brilliantly, less like a play than a rap video, with Candice Renée announcing herself as Lady M over a beat, and she is a real find. She took Best Actress at the BronzeLens Film Festival for this, and you can hear exactly why the moment she opens her mouth. There is a swagger and a threat to her that fits Lady Macbeth like a glove, the ambition and the danger already fully formed. The music throughout is terrific, and it does what the best needle drops do, carrying the mood and the momentum without ever feeling like decoration.
The acting is strong across the board, and Kennedy himself is a compelling presence, dragging his Mac from reluctance into blood. It is very clearly a low budget piece. There is not much visual variety, most of it plays out across only one or two locations, and yet across roughly twenty minutes that never once becomes a problem. If anything I was impressed by how much atmosphere and drive the film wrings from so little. Ambition and imagination paper over the money that was not there, which is precisely what a good short should do.
Judged as what it is, a bold, self contained, modern spin on an old classic with a killer soundtrack and one genuinely inspired idea at its heart, it is a very, very good short. Four stars. It left me wanting a feature length version, and that is about the highest compliment I can pay a twenty minute film. Seek it out.
Reviewed from a screener kindly provided by the film-makers. Macbeth in Compton is written and directed by Page Kennedy, and won Best Actress (Candice Renée) at the BronzeLens Film Festival 2026.
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