Bonello’s The Beast

In the year 2044, “cleaning your DNA” is a lot like what taking the Covid vaccine was in 2021. You just cannot get a decent job without doing it. To us, it looks and sounds more like clearing your karma. Regardless, the totally-not-dystopian government makes life difficult for those who decline, so people will not be as prone to the extreme emotions that led to the 2025 civil war. Reluctantly, Gabrielle Monnier undergoes the process in Bertrand Bonello’s The Beast, which opens tomorrow in New York.

While immersed in the treatment, Monnier will revisit her past lives in 1910 Paris and 2014 Hollywood, so she can work through her trauma-karma. In all three time-periods, her life is apparently quantum-entangled with the of Louis (Lewanski in the 2014 storyline). Back in the early 20^th Century, they were blue-blooded French socialites, who were incapable of commencing an illicit affair due to circumstances and their own timidity. During the 2014 sequences, she is an aspiring actress house-sitting in the Hollywood Hills, while he is an angry, entitled lout, on the verge of committing a horrible violent crime. Yet, back in the future, they are both outsiders, struggling to fit in.

Somehow, all these lifetimes and timelines are inter-connected, at least according to science. Bonello identifies Henry James’ novella The Beast in the Jungle as the inspiration for the film, but it reads more like a rejoinder than a riff. In Monnier’s past lifetimes, there very definitely was a beast, or something, out there, which was undeniably dangerous.

The Beast is undeniably uneven and erratic, but somehow those flaws help make it such a weirdly powerful film. Eventually, the 1910 sequences become incredibly surreal, in ways Lanthimos, Gondry, and Aronofsky should appreciate. Yet, the 2014 time-frame ultimately overpowers and overshadows everything else in the film. Without exaggeration, these scenes constitute the most breathlessly intense home invasion horror film of the year. This is a white-knuckle viewing experience.

True History of the Kelly Gang: Brooding with Ned

In 1906, Ned Kelly was the subject of what is considered the very first feature length film (Charles Tait’s The Story of the Kelly Gang). He has been subsequently portrayed by the likes of Mick Jagger and Heath Ledger, so nobody can say his story is untold. However, some films are more accurate than others. Director Justin Kurzel and screenwriter Shaun Grant strive for historical and psychological authenticity with their historically-informed adaptation of Peter Carey’s biographical novel, True History of the Kelly Gang, which releases today on VOD and opens old school at the Ocala and Mission Tiki 4 Drive-Ins.

Ned Kelly’s childhood was awful, as viewers will see and see and see again. His father was emotionally distant and largely incapable of providing for the family, whereas his mother was an Australian Lady Macbeth. Eventually, she “apprenticed” Kelly to the infamous Harry Power and then told him to man-up when he came running back, appalled by the bushranger’s violence. At last he learned a trade.

Frankly, the first act of True History is a grubby endurance test for viewers, but things pick up when Kelly comes of age and into his own. Initially, the prodigal Kelly resists the outlaw ways of his family, but his is forced into crime by circumstances and the villainy of Constable Fitzpatrick, with whom Kelly was formerly on (warily) friendly terms. The rest is violent history.

Although Kurzel and Grant generally side with those who see Kelly as a Robin Hood rebel instead of those (largely English) who disparage him as a cutthroat, they still drain the heroism out of his story. Instead, we get a naturalistic, proletarian Kelly. This a gritty, dank, and dirty looking movie, to a fault, but it still covers the major bases of Kelly’s life. Kurzel also displays a bit of a punk rock aesthetic that gives the film a slightly more contemporary vibe.

George MacKay (from 1917 and particularly impressive in For Those in Peril) is perfectly cast as Kelly. He is not huge of stature, but his wiry physicality and burning intensity create a palpable sense of dangerous instability on-screen. Surprisingly, Essie Davis is even fiercer as Mother Ellen Kelly.

1917: Oscar Contender

Operation Alberich was a German retreat, but it was a strategic retreat. It was conducted about a month and a half before America entered WWI, so there was obviously a lot of fighting left to do. The war seems endless for two lance corporals, but time is decidedly short for the completion of their fateful mission in Sam Mendes’s Golden Globe-winning 1917, which opens nationwide this Friday.

Cpl. Tom Blake has been recruited to send a message from Gen. Erinmore to the Devonshire Regiment near the Hindenburg Line, for very personal reasons. His brother, Lt. Joseph Blake serves with the Devonshires and stands to die alongside his men unless he and his mate, Cpl. William Schofield, can reach them before they charge into a certain German ambush. The General has written orders canceling the doomed attack, but reaching them in time will be no easy feat. First, Blake and his mate Cpl. William Schofield must traverse No Man’s Land, the German front line, and several active battle sights.

Superficially, 1917 might sound similar to Saving Private Ryan, but Mendes and co-screenwriter Krysty Wilson-Cairns quickly break the mold of the prior film and turn audience expectations on their ears. Once the film really shows its true colors, the only real kinship it shares with Spielberg’s film are the equally intense battle scenes. In fact, 1917’s incidents of warfighting are sometimes even more visceral, in ways that will have viewers seeking a tetanus shot afterward.

Frankly, 1917 is not easily pigeon-holed as an anti-war film or a celebration of patriotism. It is really just about two young kids trying to survive a war they do not fully comprehend. Mendes & Wilson-Cairns’ narrative, based on the reminiscences of the former’s grandfather Alfred Mendes, is a case of the epic becoming acutely personal. The tone is almost Homeric, but without any pretentious baggage.

For Those in Peril: On the Scottish Sea

Whenever the sea is personified, it is always in a malevolent way. For many seafaring Scottish villagers, there is a devil in the ocean. They are mostly speaking figuratively, but the suggestion takes root in the grieving teenage protagonist of Paul Wright’s For Those in Peril (trailer here), which opens tomorrow in Los Angeles.

Aaron’s older brother Michael was always popular with their peers, while he was the awkward one. Yet, somehow when their fishing boat encountered some sort of mishap at sea, only Aaron returned. With no memory of what happened to the others, he faces the village’s superstitious doubt and scorn as best he can, but his own survivor’s guilt is even harder to bear. As time passes with little social or emotional relief for young man, he becomes convinced his brother is still out there, waiting for Aaron to rescue him from the sea.

Aside from his wrung-out mother, only Michael’s almost-fiancée Jane offers Aaron any support. However, that sort of compassion does not sit well with her loutish father. Increasingly isolated and alienated, Aaron starts planning some desperate and probably hopeless measures.

Even though Peril always stays safely north of the Mendoza line separating proper cinema from genre film, a profound sense of spiritual uneasiness permeates the film. It is an earthly tragedy, yet like Aaron, we keep holding out hope for some sort of magical realism deliverance. Wright compellingly evokes the feeling you can almost step outside of time to correct some cosmic mistake if you only try hard enough, which those who have experienced deep remorse will recognize only too well.

Of course, we cannot undo what is done, which makes it so painful to watch George MacKay’s powerfully brittle lead performance. It is a quiet turn, but so intense you can practically see the gaping wound in his psyche. Likewise, Kate Dickie is nearly as devastating as the mother mourning her first son while trying to save the second, However, one of the greatest surprises is the soul and depth of Nichola Burley’s work as Jane, representing a quantum step up from her party girl roles in movies like Donkey Punch.

If ever there was a film that could be described as “moody,” it would be Peril, with considerable credit due to the sad beauty of cinematography Benjamin Kracun’s forlorn seascapes and penetrating close-ups. Wright masterfully controls the vibe, but he might overdo the perceptual stylization a tad, here and there. Regardless, it thunderously announces the arrival of its youngish talent, including Wright behind the camera and MacKay and Burley in front of it. Recommended for discerning audiences, For Those in Peril opens this Friday (10/3) in Los Angeles at the Arena Cinema.