They have kept her idea for the opening credits, letting names in a canary-yellow font float against stormy waters.

A Bottom Line film

In association with FilmFour

Emilia Cosvelinos

Becky notes that Sharon’s name has been added alongside that of the original screenwriter. She is a co-writer now, as well as director. So that’s how it went after she left the job, thinks Becky. Perhaps it was part of the price extracted for Sharon’s staying on the project? More credit, more money.

But after the titles fade so does the sting, and she finds herself enjoying it more than she’d anticipated. Mostly she is pleased that it works, this artfully modernized tale of a woman who exacts revenge on her husband by murdering their children and who then, intoxicated by the ease of it, murders the husband for good measure.

Most of the last script Becky saw has made it to the screen.

Medea buries her husband’s body and takes control of her husband’s business, and then the town, absorbing and supercharging all his old business relationships, not least the one he had with his best friend who Medea now sleeps with.

Medea understands perfectly well what her legacy will be when she is found out, which she knows must happen, but still she refuses to run. Up on the big screen, Emilia/Medea is surrounded by a group of men decrying the ways in which she has betrayed them. Medea counters that she spent a lifetime being betrayed and, in tolerating it, betraying herself. She is magnificent in her contempt for them, even as they close in on her, intent on their revenge.

Becky waits for Medea to be strung up by the men. Only Sharon must have changed the script because now the men paw and rip at Medea’s clothing, groping and slapping her flesh, screaming at her to repent. And Medea doesn’t give them anything they might want from her, no fear or contrition or submission or shame. She scorns them. She pours fresh humiliation on them, naming their shortcomings as they cover her with their hands, half of which punch and slap, while the other half grab for breast and crotch. Their violences overlap, arms pushing against arms to get at her, clenched knuckles smashing down on the spread fingers of their brothers.