Rare Beasts

Review by David Jenkins @daveyjenkins

Directed by

Billie Piper

Starring

Billie Piper Kerry Fox Leo Bill

Anticipation.

This looks like the type of British film that comes out every month.

Enjoyment.

It’s not that film. It is instead a self-styled “anti-rom-com” that is more clever and insightful than that descriptor would suggest.

In Retrospect.

Results may vary – I absolutely can’t wait to see it again.

This provocative, heart-on-sleeve romantic drama from Billie Piper marks the arrival of a serious filmmaking talent.

When we say a movie “gets under your skin”, is that a good or a bad thing? Is the sensation irritating? Does the expression intimate that personal space is being invaded? Or does it denote something that sticks with you – merges with you – and, scratch and claw as you might, you just can’t get rid of it?

Billie Piper’s directorial debut, which she also wrote and stars in, is all of the above, a red-raw slab of heart-on-sleeve energy which does everything bar reaching through the screen to rattle your seat for a reaction. Rare Beasts is a provocative, energising and angry work, the product less of an industry mainstay who wanted to add ‘filmmaker’ to their CV and more of someone who had an urgent statement to make, and the only way to articulate that statement with ample power and clarity was via the hallowed medium of film.

Piper stars as the thrillingly confrontational Mandy, a single mother looking for a new romantic connection who decides to explore the possibilities of love and marriage with one of her work colleagues, Pete (Leo Bill). The problem is, Pete seems to verge on the evil with his aggressively solipsistic worldview. He’s like a human Marmite effigy, and yet Mandy is mysteriously and persistently drawn to him, as if she sees him as a tragic challenge to be broken down, or a social castaway in need of salvation.

She sees a simple truth to the fact that Pete is conscious and even proud of his own awfulness – there is no mystery to him or no (even more) squalid underside to be discovered. Unlike her father (another winning David Thewlis sad-dad turn), whose charming introversion made him a less-than-stellar parental role model. Mandy’s mother (Kerry Fox), meanwhile, battles loneliness and illness with a punkishly blasé attitude – all of which serves to compound the confusion in her life.

While this may sound like a workaday British indie comedy, that couldn’t be further from the truth, as Piper directs dialogue exchanges with a staccato urgency, while her cinematographer, Patrick Meller, employs careful framing and sinuous camera movement to enhance the expressiveness of the actors and the overall atmosphere of deliciously acrid whimsy.

Sunny orchestral music cues that feel filched from a Hollywood musical (or more like a melancholic Jacques Demy operetta) are deployed ironically throughout, as Mandy fires out pained grins through the torment and confusion in her life, which also includes a brilliantly written brat son (Toby Woolf ) who is neither lovably precocious nor mechanically irritating – an actual living, breathing three dimensional child character (a rare beast indeed!).

Not every barb lands, and some of the floating side players are ushered in as easy figures of fun, but it’s Piper’s probing, outspoken ambition and her willingness to pose, answer and then question the answers to perverse questions about the lopsided nature of human relations that really drives this thing home. Its final scene musters a delirious bolt of open-ended emotion which authenticates Piper’s feminist credentials without things coming across as playing to the peanut gallery.

So a fully-formed director, a forcefully original writer and a brilliant performer – on the evidence of Rare Beasts, Ms Piper might be one of the most exciting big screen talents to emerge from the UK for some time.

Published 18 May 2021

Tags: Billie Piper Rare Beasts

Anticipation.

This looks like the type of British film that comes out every month.

Enjoyment.

It’s not that film. It is instead a self-styled “anti-rom-com” that is more clever and insightful than that descriptor would suggest.

In Retrospect.

Results may vary – I absolutely can’t wait to see it again.

Suggested For You

I Blame Society

By Josh Slater-Williams

A filmmaker turns serial killer in this lively meta mockumentary from writer/director Gillian Wallace Horvat.

review LWLies Recommends

Promising Young Woman

By Hannah Strong

A ferocious lead turn by Carey Mulligan super-charges this shocking, outspoken debut that pulls none of its punches.

review LWLies Recommends

Adult Life Skills

By Sophie Monks Kaufman

Jodie Whittaker delivers a commanding performance in this acutely observed Brit comedy.

review

Little White Lies Logo

About Little White Lies

Little White Lies was established in 2005 as a bi-monthly print magazine committed to championing great movies and the talented people who make them. Combining cutting-edge design, illustration and journalism, we’ve been described as being “at the vanguard of the independent publishing movement.” Our reviews feature a unique tripartite ranking system that captures the different aspects of the movie-going experience. We believe in Truth & Movies.

Editorial

Design