The Beast

Watching Bertrand Bonello’s The Beast feels a bit like trying to remember a dream while someone is whispering a countdown in your ear. It’s a film that exists in the gaps between what we feel and what we’re allowed to express, and frankly, I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it since the credits rolled. I actually watched this on my laptop while my neighbor was power-washing his driveway for three hours straight, and the weird, mechanical drone of the water hitting the pavement actually synced up perfectly with the film's industrial, creeping score. It made the whole experience feel like a sensory hallucination.

Released into a cinematic landscape dominated by tidy franchises and loud spectacles, The Beast is a massive, sprawling anomaly. It’s a loose adaptation of Henry James’s The Beast in the Jungle, but instead of a Victorian drawing room, Bonello takes us through a triple-decker sandwich of timelines: 1910 Paris, 2014 Los Angeles, and a sterile, A.I.-governed 2044.

A Masterclass in Atmospheric Dread

At the center of all three timelines is Léa Seydoux as Gabrielle. If there was ever a doubt that Seydoux (who we’ve seen in everything from No direct tie to Bond needed here, let's go with... Wes Anderson’s The French Dispatch to Blue is the Warmest Color) is one of the most capable actors of our generation, this film buries it. She’s tasked with playing three versions of the same soul, all of them haunted by a "beast"—a vague, looming sense of impending catastrophe that prevents her from ever fully committing to the present.

In 1910, she’s a celebrated pianist in a doll factory (the imagery of the porcelain heads is genuinely unsettling). In 2014, she’s an aspiring actress working as a house-sitter in a cold, glass-walled L.A. mansion. And in 2044, she’s a woman undergoing a "DNA purification" process to scrub her emotions so she can qualify for a better job in a world where A.I. has rendered human feeling obsolete.

Across all these lives, she keeps running into Louis, played by George MacKay. You might know MacKay from the frantic energy of 1917, but here he’s something entirely different. He shifts from a romantic suitor in the Belle Époque to a terrifyingly recognizable "incel" figure in the 2014 segment. Their chemistry isn't the "fireworks and roses" kind; it’s more like two magnets that keep flipping poles—sometimes drawing together with desperate heat, sometimes repelling each other with violent force.

The Modern Ache of the Digital Ghost

The 2014 Los Angeles segment is where the film really earns its "Contemporary Cinema" badge. Bonello taps into a very specific, modern horror: the isolation of the digital age. This chapter plays out like a psychological thriller, with Gabrielle alone in a house, surrounded by screens, while Louis stalks the perimeter, recording YouTube manifestos about how women have rejected him. It’s basically a slasher movie directed by a philosopher who spends too much time on Reddit.

It’s uncomfortable, precisely because it feels so close to our current reality. In an era where we’re constantly worried about how A.I. is changing our art and our jobs, The Beast asks a much scarier question: What if we’ve already started turning ourselves into robots just to survive the anxiety of living?

The technical craft here is astounding. Josée Deshaies’s cinematography changes its texture for each era—from the warm, grainy elegance of 1910 to the flat, harsh digital sheen of 2014. It’s the kind of visual storytelling that reminds me why we still need the theatrical experience (or at least a very good home setup).

Why You’ve Probably Never Heard of It

Despite the pedigree of its stars and the buzz it generated at festivals like Venice, The Beast basically vanished at the box office. It’s a 146-minute, partially subtitled French-Canadian co-production that refuses to give the audience an easy "happily ever after." In the streaming era, movies like this often get buried under the sheer volume of "content" that’s designed to be watched while scrolling through your phone.

Interestingly, George MacKay wasn't the first choice for Louis. The role was originally intended for the late Gaspard Ulliel (the brilliant lead of Saint Laurent), who tragically died in a skiing accident before filming began. Knowing that adds a meta-layer of grief to the movie; it’s a film about lost souls and interrupted lives, being haunted by the ghost of an actor who couldn't be there.

There’s also a brief, surreal appearance by Dasha Nekrasova (of Succession and the Red Scare podcast), which feels like a very "2024" casting choice, grounding the film’s L.A. segment in a specific kind of contemporary internet subculture.

The Beast is a heavy lift, but it’s a rewarding one. It’s for the viewers who want to be challenged, who want a movie that lingers in the back of their mind like a low-grade fever. It’s a romance that’s also a horror movie, and a sci-fi epic that’s actually a character study. If you’re tired of the same old narrative beats and want to see what happens when a director swings for the fences, hunt this one down. Just maybe wait until your neighbor is finished with the power-washer.

Whether you find it brilliant or frustrating, I can guarantee you won’t be bored. It’s a film that understands that the most terrifying thing in any century isn't a monster or a machine—it’s the vulnerability of actually caring about someone else. Seek it out on whatever digital platform is currently hosting it, and let it get under your skin.