Beast

Dir: Michael Pearce

2018

****

Writer/director Michael Pearce really didn’t make his life easy with his intense 2017 thriller, Beast. It’s a beautifully shot and unnerving psychological thriller that is intensified by the incredibly hypnotic performance by Jessie Buckley. The story could have gone anywhere and Buckley would have steered the way perfectly. The problem with the film is that the beginning is so intense and full of intrigue and suspense that the conclusion was always going to be an anti-climax. I didn’t hate the ending, but it could never live up to the slow burning feeling of dread and anticipation felt throughout the film. It’s a problem that many of the truly great thrillers have always had. It’s ambiguous but not ambiguous enough, although it is nice and eerie. The film begins with a rather ominous series of beautiful landscapes, each with a floral tribute laid within it, suggesting places of recent murder. We then follow 27-year-old Moll (Buckley) who works as a tour guide on the Island of Jersey, while living with her wealthy parents to help care for her father who has dementia. It is soon revealed that he community is on-edge following a string of unsolved rapes and murders of young women in the area – an idea based on the notorious ‘Beast of Jersey’ who terrorized the island in the 1960s and 1970s. I bet the film hasn’t been popular with the locals. During Moll's birthday party, her sister, who is clearly the most popular of the siblings, hijacks the reception to announce that she is pregnant with twins. Irritated at being upstaged, Moll leaves the party and goes to a nightclub on impulse, where she dances all night with a young man she meets there. The man aggressively pursues her as they leave the club and forces himself upon her near the beach, but Moll is rescued by poacher Pascal (Johnny Flynn), who fends off her pursuer with a hunting rifle. They soon strike up a romantic fling after becoming infatuated with each other’s mysteries, much to her family's discomfort, due to his outsider status and suspicions surrounding the ongoing murder case. As their relationship blossoms, Moll reveals some of her troubled past to Pascal and why she is still treated as a young child by her mother. It is revealed that as a teenager she stabbed one of her classmates, and was home-schooled from then on, though she claims it was in self-defence. A fourth murder victim is discovered on the Island, a girl who disappeared on the night of Moll's birthday party. Moll begins to wonder if Pascal might be involved. However, when she is questioned by Clifford, a police detective and family friend who had previously revealed he has a crush on her, she lies about her first encounter with Pascal, claiming she met him at the nightclub and they danced there all night. Clifford informs her of Pascal's criminal past, which includes an assault charge for choking a girl as a teenager. Moll confronts Pascal about it and he reacts angrily, saying he has made mistakes in the past but regrets it to this day. They profess their love for each other and their bond is strengthened. An indignant Moll causes a scene at a pre-wedding meal her sister has thrown and is kicked out of the fancy club, disowning her family and defiling the club’s golf course with a putter. She soon moves in with Pascal, but is taken into custody on official police suspicion of his involvement in the murders. She repeats her prior claim about meeting him in the club. The lead detective accuses Moll of protecting a possible murderer and wonders aloud if she is seeking retribution against the community, to which Moll storms out. Wracked with guilt over the latest murdered girl, Moll abandons her job and goes to a department store, where she finds the girl she stabbed as a teenager working. She apologizes and claims it was in self-defence; the employee reacts angrily and tells her to leave. Moll then goes to the deceased girl's memorial and comforts the girl's mother, but she is regarded as an outcast and told to leave. Clifford visits Moll at her home and informs her that they caught the murderer who was an immigrant farmer. He also apologizes for treating her with suspicion, but insists that Pascal is still bad news. Relieved, Moll celebrates by going out drinking with Pascal. During a drunken argument, and partly by her request, he choke-slams her against a wall in anger. Moll escapes to Clifford's house and admits to lying about Pascal's whereabouts on the night of the murder, he chastises her harshly and tells her to get out. During a dinner date, Moll invites Pascal to admit his involvement in the murders, now convinced it was him. She coaxes him by admitting her own secret: that she stabbed the girl not in self-defence, but in revenge, trying to kill her. The film then enters its spiraling conclusion and I’m still unclear who the real murderer is, which is to the story’s credit. It’s bleakness in technicolor, a film that will haunt its viewer and will never quite reveal any answers. Flynn is great in his role but Buckley steals the show, in fact she is the show. I think Michael Pearce has made an incredibly uneasy film, in that sense it is a masterwork, although it isn’t perfect and the story jumps and relies on dream sequences a little too often. Still, a great director and a wonderful lead actor make this is an uncomfortably hypnotic experience.