Hold Your Breath for 'Beast'

I generally dislike thrillers and, as such, have only ever seen a handful of them (Gone Girl comes to mind, hated it at the time). Beast, however, arguably toes the line between thriller and horror, a genre I very much enjoy and which is proving particularly fruitful this season (A Quiet Place, Ghost Stories, Wildling and Hereditary promise to keep me pretty busy in the coming weeks). This crossover is far from being Beast’s only redeeming quality: an art film that neglects neither plot nor character study, Michael Pearce’s latest is an atmospheric achievement as well as an exercise in apnea.

Moll is a 27-year-old living with her family in Jersey (an island! No escape! Haha I see what you did there, filmmakers!), who shows signs of distress from the onset, before we even learn about a recent string of murders. Moll has a defective relationship with her entire family; her mother in particular routinely infantilises and humiliates her. This systematic rejection — from relatives, but also from peers and acquaintances — takes a psychological toll on the protagonist, whom it’s important to note is not defined by her violent inclinations, but rather resorts to them as the only possible coping mechanism. Her unlikely strength of character in the face of constant debilitation (as she repeats “there’s nothing wrong with me” to anyone who suggests otherwise) is struck down time and time again, until she has no tangible choice left.

The film assumes Moll’s point of view, which leaves us to identify with her character and invokes frustration with others’ treatment of her, while her penchant for violence both disturbs our notion of right and wrong and problematises self-victimisation as a justification for self-harm and harm to others. It spotlights the animal nature of humanity, posing beastliness as superior to socialisation — that is, beastliness in appearance, primal instincts and violence as a means of survival. From Moll’s unreliable perspective (she is prone to dreams, hallucinations and psychoses), everyone around her is duplicitous and self-serving, except the man she meets as the narrative takes shape, Pascal, a kindred spirit and a chief suspect in the murder case.

Moll and Pascal enter into an exultant romance, their Bonnie and Clyde-style us-against-the-world relationship as enthralling as it is insular and dangerous. For anyone, but especially for someone as actively diminished as Moll has been, the pull of unconditional love and acceptance can be nothing other than frenzying. Love is stronger than death, isn’t that right? As an aside, a hasty google taught me that this melodramatic idea takes its roots in the Bible, which is pretty cool — I really must get around to reading that book, and also to reassessing my idea of “cool.”

Colour, sound and rhythm collide to create a beguiling experience, whereby the audience dreams Moll’s dreams and feels her heart beat in their eardrums. I hung onto a pillow for dear life, held my breath throughout and damn near dislocated my jaw gasping, but I’m a really good audience — my blessing and my curse — so don’t take my word for it and go see Beast for yourself.

9/10