During and after watching the movie “Beast” I had many thoughts and questions going through my mind such as am I getting weirder as I get old or are movies getting weirder? Why do first time directors, like Michael Pearce who also wrote the screenplay, feel that they have to show every ‘art’ shot whether it adds to the movie or not? Did he deliberately want those few bars of music so loud every now and then? Was I missing something with that music?

I feel anything I say will be a spoiler which I don’t like to give but I can say the main relationship in “Beast” is between Moll (Jessie Buckley) who was punished (I still don’t know how!) for stabbing a fellow student when she was younger with scissors and Pascal (Johnny Flynn) who may or may not be a serial killer of young women.

I was mesmerized by Jessie Buckley and Johnny Flynn’s acting and the chemistry between them. The closest I can equate them with is the pairing of Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall in “To Have and Have Not” for the first time. The romance between Moll and Pascal is a mix of tenderness, tension, exposed nerves, suspicions and certainly dangerous. There is no way they won’t hold your attention when they are together or even in the scenes where they are apart doing things alone or with other people.

I will say that her mother, played by Geraldine James, is the mother of all mothers and there is a policewoman, whose name I didn’t catch in the credits, who will have the hairs on your arms standing up.

There are scenes of animal cruelty, mainly towards rabbits, that turned me off but the scenes of the island of Jersey off the south coast of England will make you want to catch the next plane there.

If nothing else the performances of Jessie Buckley and Johnny Flynn should make “Beast” a big hit but I fear it will disappear far too quickly in the USA but you should make a point of seeing it before then.

Movie trailer

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ro_jFX2oeA