TV review: The Beast In Me is the best thriller I've watched this year
The Beast in Me is a good way to get a taste for that Hitchcock movie you’re planning to watch over Christmas.
(Netflix) doesn’t give you time to think. Everything happens faster than you expect it to happen, which makes it the best thriller of the year.
The story centres around writer Aggie Wiggs, mourning the death of her eight-year old in a car crash. She hears that Nile Jarvis has just moved in next door. He’s a super-rich guy widely suspected of killing his disappeared wife.Â
In any other thriller, we would have a whole episode of waiting for Aggie to encounter Nile, before she meets him putting out the bins, and do you know what, he was very charming. Not here. Within minutes, Nile’s ferocious dogs are snarling at her patio door trying to get in.Â
Twenty minutes later, Aggie is having lunch with Nile. He’s awful, in a cartoonish way, so you like him. Walking out after lunch, Aggie spots the driver of the car that killed her son and points him out to Nile. Minutes later, that driver is found dead.
Oh yeah, there is a guy watching Aggie as she goes into the restaurant for lunch. He pops up pissed drunk at her house later that night, during a storm, flashing his FBI badge and warning Aggie to keep away from psycho Nile. I wasn’t expecting that.
is a good way to get a taste for that Hitchcock movie you’re planning to watch over Christmas. There is no shortage of spooky close-ups, storms, lightning, over-acting... it’s hilariously unnerving.
And, best of all, Aggie is played by Claire Danes, queen of close-ups. The smallest re-arrangement of her face muscles and she’s gone from furious to terrified. There is this anxious energy in everything she does, she is never at rest. You can’t take your eyes off her. So put away your smartphone when you sit down to binge
Matthew Rhys is equally gripping as Nile. None of your suave charmer here as he tries to bully Aggie into letting him install a paved jogging path through the forest around their homes. But you’re drawn to him, and the way he enjoys his notoriety, with relish.
There is more to this than creepy neighbours. Aggie is trying and failing to mend her relationship with ex-wife Shelley. She is also running out of money and needs to crack on with her new book about an unlikely friendship between two supreme court judges. (Small queues to buy that one, I’d say.)
is one piece of trauma layered on top of another but it’s done so well you can’t look away. Definitely give this a watch.
