(Spoilers ahead)
This movie has been an insomnia cure for me. An evening way to unwind and lick my earthly wounds. Now I don’t even want to go into why that is. The only other movie that I can recall giving me similar satisfaction was A Panic in Needle Park(And I have no damn clue why that is). When I first watched this movie I thought it was about a woman who wanted to be bad. Who was duplicitous, unreliable. Maybe she envied the beast’s nature? Maybe she was secretly the beast. Some scenes suggest as much. But thank God there wasn’t some reveal as trite and redundant as that.
Our story takes place on an island. An English island. On the outside, it appears quaint, idyllic. It's like a fairytale. But it's all façade. Even this fairytale's heroine who initially was presented as your typical downtrodden Cinderella figure turns out to have her own beastly past. At the age of 13, she assaulted a girl and has been atoning for her sins ever since by being the family doormat. Played masterfully by Jessie Buckley, she almost quite literally is the redheaded stepchild. Even her name, Moll or 'maul', suggests violence. But despite all this context, it's apparent that her demons weren't created in isolation. Her family doesn't see her. She gets the spotlight pulled from her even on her birthday. After being upstaged by her expecting sister, Moll pulls away and escapes her façade of a celebration. She instead goes to a local club off the beach and loses herself in dance and drinking until morning.
When another club-goer attempts to force himself on her, Pascal intervenes. He aims a gun at the would-be rapist and scares him off like a hunter scaring off small game. The viewer, like Moll, isn't sure how to perceive this new stoic man with dirt-encrusted in his nail beds. Friend or foe? But another option emerges as well: benevolent misfit. He did save her, after all. He can't help being an orphan and general recluse. And his looks are certainly not a deterrent. Director Michael Pearce mentions in a BFI panel for Beast having reservations about casting Johnny Flynn in this role and I would too if I were him. Before Beast, I'd only seen him in romcom roles like the Netflix series Lovesick. But in a way, I think it works well with the movie's themes. Pascal isn't all that he appears. He's a composite, just like Mol. It's what she believes draws her to him. The whole movie hinges on the dubious nature of Pascal. And maybe Moll herself since she sees so much of herself in him.
Pascal drops Moll off at her home where she is confronted by her mother, also played masterfully by Geraldine James, who I am familiar with most from Anne With an 'E'. She plays a very manipulative Marilla type of character here. She guilts her for leaving after 'all the effort she put into making it special' which prompts Moll to immediately go into apology mode. There's something very off about this dynamic. It's as if her mother's and by extension her whole family's happiness is predicated on Moll doing precisely what is expected of her. After a flipped role of the daughter soothing the mother, Moll's mother instructs her to eat the leftover birthday cake she already was starting on when she arrived. So she does. Moll inhales the lemon cake. Quickly, she lodges a piece down her gullet like cough medicine. I could taste the goodness and the cruelty of that cake. No better metaphor for the feeling one has after being caught in parental rebellion. It's no longer enjoyable when encouraged. By this point, the viewer can’t help but understand how she would gravitate to Pascal.
Her eyes seem almost to prey on him. Jessie Buckley herself admitted that Moll and Pascal are very animalistic people. They act instinctively and they act against perceived appearances as well. If Pascal is the beast in question, he never directly lets this on. It’s a common abuse tactic to let the victim think they’re in control. Moll feels for once in her life that she has some agency when she’s with Pascal. She ignores the red flags. I wonder how many times she could’ve easily become another casualty for Pascal. I think of the night they first slept together as the most likely time for him to expose his nature. If Moll were to walk away or go into that dark expanse with him skeptically, she could not win. Instead, she exposed her nature by having sex with him in the woods. But that’s ridiculous, isn’t it? For her once savior to flip and become a man capable of violating her? In a way, he reminds me of Travis Bickle. I hear the words of Cybil Shepherd saying ‘he’s a prophet and a pusher. Partly true, partly fiction. Walking contradiction’. But this story is not from the perspective of a deluded antihero like Taxi Driver but a deluded antiheroine.
It’s clear to me now that Moll never wanted to be the Beast. As drawn to him as she was, she didn't want to be defined by her macabre past or make excuses for it. She wanted atonement, acceptance. She quite literally wanted to bury those pieces of herself. But first, she needed to confront them in Pascal. Her rebellion leads her to accept what she was formerly taught was wrong but she can't escape the truth of the Beast's proximity. Not even in her dreams. In a town as small and tribal as this truths and lies collide easily. But his indifference to the victims is what finally sets her off.
The killing of the rabbit mirrors the killing of Pascal. He's taken completely off guard and still alive after the initial blow. 'We're the same' he lets out in a raspy voice. Moll nods her head and begins strangling him, burying the existence of the beast.
I can't get over this movie and its complexity. So many layers! It's a character study masquerading as a fairytale. There are little subtleties that I observe after repeated watches like in the scene where Pascal tries to calm the father of one of the murdered victims almost like he's trying to placate a wild animal. He does not see the beast is himself and neither do the other Jersians, preferring to act on instinct and xenophobia when it turns out the culprit was one of their own.
This story was partly inspired by a serial rapist dubbed the Beast of Jersey that attacked residents of this island in the 60s and 70s. And in that case, also, a man was wrongfully presumed to be guilty. It drove him off the island. The true Beast was found and convicted in 1971. I suppose Pearce, a Jersey native was inspired to create this story after ruminating on how it must've been for the perpetrator's wife. What must it be like for any wife or partner of an alleged monster? It's a question that I don't think is explored often in fiction these days. Antiheroes today are praised more and presented with more insight and nuance than their less culpable wives. I think it's not sufficient to say that this is purely owed to misogyny but because we naturally like to assume like attracts like. Good people attract other good people. Rich finds rich. Poor finds poor. The princess will find her prince. Even though history has shown that humans aren't very good judges of character, we perceive life existing this way. We choose to bury the thought that perhaps several beasts are looming in our collective midst. Perhaps even within.
