An unexpectedly powerful and multi-layered thriller in the vein of the best British detective stories and Gillian Flynn’s psychological dramas, exploring the dark side of our passions.
Moll, a red-haired beauty raised in a strict family, feels trapped on the small island where she has spent her entire life. Her sense of alienation is compounded by the fact that those around her consider her strange and even dangerous, and her own mother doesn’t allow her to breathe freely. Meeting the straightforward and independent Pascal changes Moll; she feels the strength to finally become herself, break free from her chains, and perhaps even leave the hated patch of land in the middle of the sea forever. But a serious obstacle stands in the way of the two lovers’ happiness – a series of murders of girls sweeps across the island, and Pascal becomes a suspect. Unwilling to believe that she is dating a monster, Moll tries in every way to defend her lover before the investigators, but over time, the girl begins to feel that something terrible and evil is brewing inside her…
An island in the ocean, isolated from the mainland, the pressures of civilization, and endless human streams, is the perfect place to unfold a good drama or thriller. That’s why novels and films like “And Then There Were None,” “Lord of the Flies,” or “The Island of Doctor Moreau” are so popular – the roughness of the land on the smooth water surface, like a lens, magnifies the significance of emotions and feelings, the depth and complexity of characters, and the pressure of circumstances. A good psychological thriller, the events of which unfold on a patch of land where the number of characters is limited and there is nowhere to wait for help, is always pleasing, but if it is also not a simple detective story or horror, but a multi-layered and pleasantly unpredictable story, then the viewing pleasure is guaranteed.
Director and screenwriter Michael Pearce based the story of the murdered girls on the island on a real chain of kidnappings and deaths of children and adolescents that occurred on the island of Jersey near France in the 1960s-1970s.
“Beast” is precisely such a complex psychological thriller, which hides several parallel lines behind the story of a serial killer, providing food for discussion that is no less turbulent than the personality of the main villain. There is a fantastically powerful layer of loneliness of a person who is not accepted even by his own family, there is a fantastic beauty of love, which seems to be admired by nature itself, there is a heavy tread of public condemnation, sometimes not too justified, but rolling over the victim with a roller, there is even an attempt to understand the nature of evil, albeit somewhat superficial and infantile – Michael Pearce’s film turned out to be worthy of repeated viewing.
Since today the island of Jersey is one of the tourist centers of Europe, it turned out to be too expensive to shoot on it, so the frame contains genuine landscapes of Jersey, but all interior shots and shots on the streets of the town took place in the British county of Surrey.
The main storyline, in which the fates of the downtrodden Moll and the uninhibited Pascal are intertwined, is also quite gripping. Pearce quite cleverly manipulates the viewer, sometimes “framing” the characters for suspicion, then carefully protecting them from any accusations. Everyone around glances at each other, looks at the hooligan and nihilist with reproach and speaks through their teeth, but it seems to us that the person does not deserve this until his guilt is proven. And it is still not possible to accuse Pascal of serial murders; moreover, something wild, animalistic, and deadly dangerous manifests itself even in Moll herself – at a certain stage of the story, you stop excluding the girl from the number of possible suspects.
Moll, played by Jessie Buckley, is, by the way, the reason why “Beast” is worth watching, even if you are not close to psychological thrillers or family dramas in which a child breaks out of his father’s house. Moll is that island, forgotten by fate, but constantly stormed by waves and winds. In isolation, in the shell, in the shell of this heroine, something so powerful grows that the explosion can shatter the entire rock on which the other characters nest. Moll is a unique heroine, strong and passionate, independent but suppressed, devoted but fair. Buckley’s acting exceeds all expectations; thanks to the actress’s special energy, the film is filled with emotions, uniquely plays with halftones, and captivates with details into the very depths of a terrible fairy tale about a beauty who meets either a Prince Charming or a Gray Wolf in the night forest.
It is also worth noting the magnificent Geraldine James, who plays Moll’s mother – at times this actress reaches some transcendental level of emotions, which makes her resemble Meryl Streep and Charlotte Rampling at the same time and play at about the level of these stars. Unfortunately, in the finale, the line of the mother, and the family in general, somewhat eludes the authors, but only because Jessie Buckley takes up all the space in the frame, deafeningly powerful, like Moll’s screams at her neighbors, and bottomlessly deep, like the sadness in the eyes of a girl left unattended on her birthday.
Summary
“Beast” is a system of equations with many unknowns, the solution of which is not found in the most obvious way, and the answer to which may disappoint some viewers. But at the same time, this film is extraordinarily charged and cocked, like a revolver hammer – one wrong move, and it will blow your mind. Coupled with Nordic coldness, brilliant sound accompaniment, and fantastic acting performances, the story of a wolf in sheep’s clothing is worthy of the title of one of the best genre films of the year.
In theaters from July 5.