Beast

Out 20 August / CERT 15 / 102 mins

Debutante writer-director Michael Pearce’s charged, compelling character piece is the most exciting thing to happen in Jersey since Bergerac. An astonishing Jessie Buckley is Moll who, stuck at home and stifled by low family expectations, finds a new lease of life when she meets dark, dangerous Heathcliff-alike Pascal (Johnny Flynn). Yet Pascal’s arrival coincides with a spate of murders on the Island, throwing shade and suspicion on the new couple. Enlivening obvious thriller tics, Pearce’s woozy, almost fairy-tale like filmmaking will keep you on the edge — it shares DNA with Nicolas Roeg — but what really sticks is the red-hot chemistry between the two leads. Flynn plays Pascal on a knife-edge, milking the is-he-or-isn’t-he-a-serial killer without ever overplaying his hand. But the real joy is Buckley who displays stunning range from unworldly innocence to sexually alive to lost and lonely. Give her all the scripts.