Review by
Eric Hillis
Directed by: Bertrand Bonello
Starring: Léa Seydoux, George MacKay, Guslagie Malanda, Dasha Nekrasova, Elina Löwensohn
Bertrand Bonello's previous film, Coma, was an intimate project shot within the confines of his home during the
pandemic lockdown. His latest, The Beast, is a sprawling sci-fi thriller that plays out over three timelines on
both sides of the Atlantic. Despite such differences, the two movies are
thematically joined at the hip, and I would recommend seeing them in the
order Bonello made them, though modern distribution patterns being what
they are, that may not be possible for most viewers.
Through the central figure of a suicidal teenage girl, Coma explored the growing feeling that we're all losing our sense of
free will and self determination, that we're increasingly manipulated by
other forces into leading someone else's life. The Beast takes this idea and expands upon it in some style. Like Coma, it suggests Bonello gave Twin Peaks a rewatch during the lockdown, and like that movie it also seems
influenced by Rob Savage's no-budget pandemic horror hit Host in one particular scene involving a video call.
Just like Twin Peaks, The Beast revolves around a doomed blonde. Or in this case, three doomed
blondes, all played by Léa Seydoux and all named
Gabrielle (in all three roles Seydoux is playing a character a decade or
so younger than herself, but you never question it).
If The Beast can be thought of as an anthology movie, its framing story is the
one that takes place in Paris in 2044. There we find a society where AI
has progressed so rapidly that humans struggle to find work. Gabrielle has
a mundane job that involves sitting around all day and occasionally
reading the temperature of a server. To acquire a better job she agrees to
undergo a process of having her DNA "purified," in order to rid her of the
sort of messy human emotions that might interfere with her career
advancement. This process sees her experience past lives, which is where
the film's other two storylines come in.
The first takes place in 1910 Paris, at the time of the city's great
flood, and is loosely inspired by Henry James' novella 'The
Beast in the Jungle' (which was recently adapted as another French film
maintaining its full title). James' story is about a man who is so
obsessed with a feeling of impending catastrophe that it precludes him
from enjoying a relationship with the woman who loves him. Bonello takes
the starting point of that story for a doom-laden period romance, adorned
with sumptuous settings and fabulous costumes that stand in stark contrast
to the clinical drabness of the world we see in the later segments. Here
Gabrielle is a famous concert pianist married to a doll maker who produces
a bestselling line based on her image. At a society shindig one night
Gabrielle encounters Louis (George MacKay), an Englishman who
recalls meeting her in Naples six years earlier where she mentioned that
she was consumed by a feeling of impending catastrophe. The two fall for
one another but Gabrielle's fears mean she can't bring herself to express
her true feelings for Louis.
One of the worst film reviewing cliches is to compare anything slightly
off-kilter to the work of David Lynch, but there's no avoiding such
comparisons with the film's second story, set in 2014 Los Angeles. The
Gabrielle of this timeline is a French actress who has moved to California
to make it in Hollywood, and is house-sitting one of those lavish mansions
in the Hollywood hills while she tries to get her career started. Far from
the dashing Louis of 1910, here we find MacKay playing Louis as an incel
who drives around the city following oblivious women while he documents
his grievances in a series of YouTube videos. Wouldn't you know it,
Gabrielle finds herself in his sights.
In stark contrast to the 1910 story, which plays for the most part like a
conventional period romance, the 2014 segment leans into that unique Los
Angeles weirdness that we've seen in the work of Lynch, Nicolas Winding
Refn and Tom Ford, a city filled with dead-eyed vampires constantly
seeking fresh blood. The Lynch comparisons are compounded by the recurring
motif of Gabrielle crying at a Roy Orbison song ('Evergreen'), even when
it's being butchered by a bad karaoke singer in a very Lynchian TV show
within the movie. With its Hollywood hills setting and stalking subplot,
it's clearly also influenced by erotic thrillers, particularly David
Schmoeller's The Seduction, in which Morgan Fairchild grows sympathetic towards her socially
awkward stalker, played by Andrew Stevens.
Bonello creates a terrifying atmosphere, greatly aided by a deeply
unsettling performance by MacKay, displaying remarkable range in his
multiple roles. Gabrielle's sadness and feeling of alienation in a city of
millions of unfriendly souls drives her towards Louis in a way that made
me think of the women played by Debra Winger in James Bridges' Mike's Murder or Caroline Munro in William Lustig's Maniac. Like Lynch and Bridges, Bonello understands that there's nothing more
upsetting than witnessing the spark leave a young woman's eyes as she's
exposed to the cruelties of the world. When Seydoux lets out a primal
scream, it's impossible not to think of Sheryl Lee's Laura Palmer.
It's in the wraparound 2044 storyline that The Beast is most in tune with Coma. Gabrielle visits a series of nightclubs, each themed on a specific year
of the 20th century, where she encounters another version of Louis, an
affable young man considering having his own DNA purified. Gabrielle is
accompanied by Kelly (Guslagie Malanda), an android assigned to
keep an eye on her while she undergoes the process. Kelly is
essentially The Beast's version of the malevolent influencer played by Julia Faure in Coma. Faure also appears here as Sophie, a voice Gabrielle confides in and
who causes us to wonder if she's human or another AI. Like the limbo
forest of Coma, the nightclubs here allow for the expressions of free will denied
elsewhere. Gilles Deleuze's warning about becoming caught up in other
people's dreams is manifested in The Beast to sometimes horrific effect.
With all three storylines culminating in depressing denouements, The Beast might be considered a deeply cynical venture. And yet in the three
Gabrielles we're given something to cling onto, a flower sprouting up
through the tarmac of a paved paradise. As we enter an uncertain future
guided by AI we're going to have to engage in serious philosophical
questions about what it means to be human. With Hollywood intent on not
just embracing AI but propagandising it with films like The Creator and Atlas, auteurs like Bonello and films like The Beast are set to play an important role. Like Gabrielle, we all feel
we're headed towards an uncertain catastrophe, but for now at least, we
still have free will. Exercise yours and see The Beast.
