201. Rare Beasts; movie review

 

 

RARE BEASTS

Cert 15

91 mins

BBFC advice: Contains very strong language, strong sex references, drug misuse

Do some people really enjoy arguing?

I have known a few who claim that the making-up is worth the row and that it is cathartic to have a good old ding-dong now and again.

I have a more conventional view that Mrs W and I are on the same team. Sniping at each other would make it feel like we were on opposite sides.

Anyway, Billie Piper's directorial debut, Rare Beasts, feels like one long slagging-off session between Mandy (Piper) and her occasional lover Pete (Leo Bill).

It is fair to say that Mandy is shambolic and self-consumed.

Her questionable parenting skills have resulted in her son (Toby Woolf) being maladjusted and have probably been inherited from her zonked-out mother (Kerry Fox) and feckless father (David Thewlis).

Indeed, when she is not raging with Pete, she is shouting at her parents and being bawled at by her son.

Some will probably rightly think this is keenly observed but I have to confess it just gave me a bit of a headache.

Unsurprisingly Rare Beasts gives a hearty nod to the theatre where Piper has been most successful in her recent career.

Her performance as Mandy crackles - either when she is blazing at her lover, searching for validation in the workplace or at the end of her tether with her son.

Bill's Pete tries to match her in the quickfire put-downs but looks a wimp by comparison.

Somehow the two grapple hold of the notion that they might actually work out together while the audience will be collectively gobsmacked at the idea.

The intensity is Rare Beasts calling card but, sadly, it is the only one it has to play and the passion of people shouting at each other wears pretty thin, pretty quickly.

That is life, of course, but it doesn't make a riveting watch despite a great cast giving their all.

Reasons to watch: Billie Piper's intensity

Reasons to avoid: Feels more like a theatre piece than a film

Laughs: None

Jumps: None

Vomit: Yes

Nudity: Yes

Overall rating: 6/10

Did you know? Billie Piper’s debut single “Because We Want To” hit the charts when she was 15 and was the first of three U.K. number-ones she scored during her music career. The others were 1998’s “Girlfriend” and 2000’s “Day and Night.”

The final word. When I was writing it, and in the early days of filming it, it felt like it was more of a story about a dysfunctional relationship and trying to escape your parents’ relationship. It just felt more relationship-based. Now, when I look back at it, I feel like it’s a dysfunctional relationship with herself. It’s more of a story about what it costs you to be a woman." Vice

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