The Beast: Léa Seydoux exceptional in a dizzying film (review)

With this love story which spans three eras against a science fiction backdrop, Bertrand Bonello creates a fascinating melodrama carried by his sparkling lead actress

Celebrated for the stylistic daring of The Apollonides or Saint Laurent, Bertrand Bonello had made less prominent films in recent years. But with The beastfree adaptation of the novel by Henry James The Beast in the Jungle, he signs a flamboyant melodrama with a futuristic air where a great thwarted love story unfolds over three temporalities. In the year 2044, while Artificial Intelligence dominates the world and suppresses human emotions, a certain Gabrielle must indeed plunge back into her previous lives to get rid of her affects. She then finds herself confronted with a love that spans the ages and interacts with a suitor named Louis, both in the erudite Paris of 1910 and in the paranoid Los Angeles of 2014. Bonello miraculously manages to depict three eras with atmospheres and with very different tones, while keeping an emotional thread mixing the fear of loving and the certainty that a catastrophe will happen. This sentimental coherence is made possible by the astonishing performance of Léa Seydoux, whose face offers a burning palette of emotions and anguish facing George MacKay (1917) fascinating with cold restraint. We also remember that the male role was to be played by Gaspard Ulliel before his death in 2022. The last images thus sound like a heartbreaking cry of distress at the disappearance of this actor to whom the film is dedicated. Until the end, Bonello upsets and consoles us. Everything at once.

Of Bertrand Bonello With Léa Seydoux, George MacKay, Guslagie Malanda… Duration 2h26. Released February 7, 2024