RARE BEASTS | FILM REVIEW
Dir: Billie Piper (15, 90 mins)
A distinctive, eccentric and angry film debut from writer/director Billie Piper that headbutts the patriarchy in idiosyncratic style and flies in the face of expected romcom norms. Piper plays Mandy, a woman struggling with relationships, work and family, all of which are rather toxic. Leo Bill plays Pete, an obnoxious paramour that Piper goes along with in the search for making do, and ‘needing’ a man. Bill is pathetic, aggressive, spineless, opinionated and many other words: it’s seemingly implausible that Piper could put up with him, and wouldn’t conventionally. She strips in front of him and critiques herself before he has a chance to; endures his sneering, his immaturity and competitiveness for attention with her son.
This all falls under the shadow of her father figure, a feckless adulterer and soul seeker played by David Thewlis: only drawn back to the family when Piper’s mother, played with cigarette-puffing indifference by Kerry Fox, becomes ill. Piper howls at the sexism in her workplace, lorded over by smarmy execs who put down her suggestions. It’s savagely comic but often irritating – there’s only so much of Bill’s arrogance that can be taken, along with Piper’s acquiescence and strange attraction to him. Some of the material feels very personal to Piper, notably the balancing of career and family: Toby Woolf’s patience-testing son Larch proves very difficult to like as Mandy sees his latent masculinity being shaped by the wrong paternal figures.
Events are rather scattershot. Mandy goes to a wedding with Bill, meets his very screwed up family and watches a cameoing Lily James dance whilst also losing her own sense of identity. Ultimately, she finds herself literally tapdancing in front of everyone, trying to please them all and failing: a change in her perspective is necessary. Rare Beasts is bold and uncomfortable, often frustrating and self-indulgent, but Piper keeps the attention as Mandy, taking us through a journey of self-discovery and announcing herself as a bold filmmaker.
Released on Fri 21 May
words KEIRON SELF