Freaky females and psychosexual eruptions: it’s always fun to watch a good little girl (of whatever age) go wild.
If some of your favourite films are Carrie, The Company of Wolves and/or Black Swan, prepare to embrace 28-year-old copper-haired Moll (Jessie Buckley), an initially gauche Jersey native who, by the end, is toasting her bourgeois family with the words: “For everything you’ve done for me — I forgive you.” Moll, in full throttle, isn’t a party-pooper. She’s a party-pulveriser.
It’s a tricky business, celebrating an actress’s unconventional looks. Is it a subtle form of body-shaming to say that Buckley isn’t the prettiest girl ever? Or even the prettiest person in Beast? (The features of her brilliant co-star Johnny Flynn are far more stereotypically luscious). I think not. Buckley doesn’t need to look like Disney’s Belle to be worthy of attention. She redefines what it means to be magnetic.
Buckley’s chemistry with Flynn (as droll, grungy local Pascal) is so authentic it makes your skin tingle. Buckley’s anti-chemistry with Geraldine James (as Moll’s controlling mother, Hilary) is just as intense.
Writer/director Michael Pearce, making his feature debut, is only 36. His assurance is astounding. You can tell he’s from Jersey (when Pascal hears that Moll takes tourists on coach tours, he snorts and says, “The granny wagons?”). Pearce films the ravishing shorelines and ugly trophy homes with equal care.
He’s less sure-footed when it comes to the twisty plot, which revolves around the hunt for a serial killer. Tension builds until you remember you’re watching a BFI-funded film, which means that the killer can’t possibly be from a marginal group. I’m all for political correctness but murder mysteries rely on the idea that anyone is capable of killing.
Never mind. The leads rise above the overlong, under-illuminating third act. Moll, Pascal and Hilary have a lupine aspect. They might bite you. Which is what makes them such fun.
