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Michael Pearce's directorial debut, 'Beast', premiered in Jersey earlier this week after getting rave reviews at the Toronto Film Festival.
Partly set in Jersey, Beast shows an unusual side of the island, one far from any typical touristic clichés.
While the movie starts on idyllic and peaceful shots of the ocean and then St. Ouen’s bay, Beast soon takes a darker turn, taking the spectator down the rabbit hole in the heroine’s footsteps. Moll, played by a captivating and sometimes unsettling Jessie Buckley, is trapped in her own family, especially her mother, who seems intent in keeping her in a mould that is too small for her and ignores everything she has to say.
It gets too much for the young girl, who ditches her own birthday party to go to the Wipeout, a club on St. Ouen’s beach that islanders will recognise as a Watersplash avatar. The morning after her escape, Moll crosses paths with Pascal – a very charismatic and charming in a rugged way Johnny Flynn - who is as independent and unfettered as she is stifled.
The pair soon falls for each other and the more time Moll spends with Pascal, the more she slips away from the clutches of her mother, the icy Geraldine James. The sharpest eyes will notice how, as the movies progresses, the waves get bigger and the ocean rougher, signalling the inner storm overcoming Moll.
Pictured: Moll is played by the captivating and sometimes unsettling Jessie Buckley.
Without revealing too much about the plot and the way it manipulates the audience (there is more than one beast in ‘Beast’ and the spectator is left to guess who is the biggest one), it all comes to a breaking point in a chilling scene when Moll’s conflicting emotions – her love for Pascal, her hatred and anger towards her family and the looming threat of a serial killer - come spilling out in a gut-wrenching scream.
After this, it is like everything unravels leading to a highly charged final scene. The tension builds up as minutes go by, cleverly aided by the sound production.
While filmed in Jersey, where Pearce grew up, Beast is not set in Jersey per se. Islanders will however pick up a few references that only locals can and will probably smile knowingly to their neighbour about. For those who expect to see a movie about the Beast of Jersey’s crimes, move over.
Beast is only very loosely inspired by them and, in any case, it explores the feelings the crimes inspire more than the actual murders.
Islanders might however be surprised to see how Pearce portrays the island. Free of any touristic clichés – Pearce admitted during a Q&A he put his foot down and refused any drone shots of Gorey Castle and Jersey cows – Jersey appears far more rugged and rough that the quaint images in Bergerac may have implanted in the minds of some.
Pictured: St. Ouen's Bay and the Five Mile Road feature heavily in Beast... but not Gorey castle.
Pearce said that filming the movie at home helped him explore his love/hate relationship with Jersey.
He however admitted that it wasn’t exactly a piece of cake to convince producers that they would get “a lot of magic with the landscapes” - more so than anywhere else in the UK. “I wanted to embrace how enchanting the island is,” said Pearce.
If you love psychological thrillers, troubled heroines and uneasy atmosphere, Beast is just the thing for you. If it is anything to go by, Pearce has a brilliant directorial career ahead of him.
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