Moll (Jessie Buckley) alibis Pascal (Johnny Flynn), but is he a serial killer?
Low-budget British drama is more psychological mystery than crime thriller
ARNOLD WAYNE JONES | Executive Editor
jones@dallasvoice.com
Moll is 27 but still lives at home under the oppressive thumb of her mother. She’s considered high-strung — she once attacked a classmate in a fit of rage — but we’re not sure what’s the cause and what’s that effect: Does Mom keep her bad instincts in check, or is she turning baby girl into Norma Bates?
There’s evidence for both. A series of murders of local girls on the remote British island where they live has panicked the community. We’re pretty sure Moll had nothing to do with them — despite her disturbing visions — but what about her new bad-boy paramour, the gruffly handsome Pascal? He’s got a temper, though he seem protective and fond of Moll. So when the local constabulary question her about his alibi, she lies for him. He would never escalate his passions to the point of being a serial killer … would he?
Beast is the feature directorial debut of Michael Pearce (he previously wrote and directed the queer short Rite) and what a debut it is. Its name and tense atmospherics seem to peg it as a horror film, or at least a violent thriller, and while there are occasional scenes of mild but unnerving gore, its execution is both more polished and more sinister. Though clearly low-budget, Pearce milks every suspicion, every deep recess of his characters, with a blend of Hitchcock and Blair Witch. Moll is clearly an unreliable protagonist — easily caught in lies, deceptively troubled — but also a sympathetic one. And we understand what she sees in Pascal, who seems to want nothing from her but her affection. It all unfolds like an episode of Dexter, if you didn’t know which character was Dexter.
Pearce also exploits the rough beauty (the cinematography or gorgeous) of the wind-swept locale, creating a sense of claustrophobia and foreboding that approximates the uneasy with which the residents — mostly small-minded, small-town yokels — experience the unexpected interference in their daily lives. They are like modern-day villagers in a Frankenstein movie; if they had torches, they’d wield them. Moll and Pascal — played with volcanic stillness by Jessie Buckley and Johnny Flynn — seem better than them, and they all know it.
The mystery, and how it is resolved plot-wise, is undeniably an essential component of what makes Beast so watchable. But the why more than the who fuels it. It’s a meditation on what darkness invades us, how our humanity rests on the surface of an animal heart.
Now playing at Angelika Film Centers in Dallas and Plano.
