Beast
2018 · Directed by Michael Pearce
Original language: English
- mystery
- crime
- drama
The story
A troubled woman living in an isolated community finds herself pulled between the control of her oppressive family and the allure of a secretive outsider suspected of a series of brutal murders.
What it’s like
Michael Pearce's Beast unfolds on the Jersey coast with the slow, humid unease of a summer that refuses to break, its pacing patient and watchful until sudden, jolting eruptions of violence puncture the quiet. The emotional register sits somewhere between romance and dread, and the film keeps you unsure which way it will tip, so the attraction at its center feels both liberating and hazardous. Jessie Buckley's Moll is a woman caught between a suffocating family and a magnetic drifter, and her arc moves from brittle resentment toward a fierce, unnerving self-assertion. The look is bright and sea-salted, with wide beach vistas and tight, claustrophobic interiors that make the island feel like a closed world. Stark, sudden sound design and a restrained score heighten the shock of the film's rare violent moments, set against long stretches of tense silence. Viewers drawn to psychological thrillers with a literary, character-driven core, and to films where a landscape itself seems to hold menace, will find much here.
More films like Beast
Closest in mood, pacing and theme. Tell us why you loved Beastand we’ll explain which ones fit you.
