BEAST
Cert 15 Running time 106 minutes
The pungent atmosphere of this throat-grabbing British thriller is a heady mix of earthy lust, poisonous snobbery and cold-hearted corruption. It’s a modern-day fairytale inspired by the infamous Beast of Jersey, a 1960’s paedophile who preyed on the Channel Island’s inhabitants.
Moll is a red-haired Cinderella who escapes her strict mother to pursue a romance with a local poacher, only to see him suspected of being a multiple child rapist and murderer.
Irish actress Jessie Buckley will be familiar from Tom Hardy’s TV series Taboo and she gives a mesmerising performance which swings from dead-pan subtlety to raw physicality. Johnny Flynn is vulnerable and wolfish as her boyfriend, Pascal.
A haunting choral soundtrack reinforces the timeless nature, and the rich script is a great example of how filmmakers are choosing to side-step the plot-ruining internet, by pretending it doesn’t exist.
This is a scarily confident directorial debut by writer Michael Pearce, and I’m intrigued to see what beastly surprises his talent serves up next.