Beast

Director Michael Pearce

United Kingdom, 107 minutes

Cast:   Jessie Buckley, Johnny Flynn, Geraldine James

The hunt for a Jersey serial killer sparks a dangerous awakening in a young woman in this astonishing psycho-sexual thriller, which sets all the senses aflame.

While celebrating her birthday, Moll drifts away from the party and finds herself eye-to-piercing-blue-eye with Pascal, a local poacher and police suspect. The attraction between these two damaged souls is immediate and palpable, and the film captures both the euphoric flush of first love and the heady insanity of sexual obsession. Meanwhile, a string of murders across Jersey has the island’s inhabitants primed for a witch hunt, and Moll and Pascal both already have black marks against them. Can they find a way to break free of social prejudice? With compelling lead performances from Jessie Buckley and Johnny Flynn, director Michael Pearce has created an intoxicating film that employs a vast cinematic canvas (calling to mind both Jane Campion and Lynne Ramsay) and bends genre expectations to its will. A genuinely sexy British thriller like this is a rare beast indeed.