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United Kingdom · 2021
1h 27m
Director Billie Piper
Starring Billie Piper, Leo Bill, Kerry Fox, Toby Woolf
Genre Comedy, Drama, Romance
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Mandy is a mother, a writer, and a nihilist. She is a modern woman in a crisis, who is raising a son in a feminist world, coping with her parents' separation, and writing about her belief that love no longer exists. When she happens upon Pete, a romantic traditionalist who values old-fashioned gender roles and conventional marriage, Mandy's world is thrown for a loop.
Billie Piper’s first feature-length movie as screenwriter and director may have bitten off more than it could chew, but it is a daring debut that marches to the beat of its own drum. I respect it for that and enjoyed it more often than not.
It’s not a perfect movie. Sometimes it moves very slowly. Other times the acting is so big it becomes pantomime. But what Piper is incredible at (in both this and I Hate Suzie) is taking the raw, intense, angry energy, that builds when you’re forced to spend too much of your life tackling the toxicity of masculinity around you, and pouring it out like a long line of acid shots for viewers to chug.
The Guardian by Peter Bradshaw
Rare Beasts is a bold experiment in nerve-jangling confrontation: it has the structure and ingredients of romantic comedy but turns everything on its head.
The Telegraph by Robbie Collin
The trouble is, Rare Beasts lacks the razor wit, merciless candour and stylistic panache of Fleabag and I May Destroy You – not to mention Piper’s own Sky Atlantic series I Hate Suzie, made after Rare Beasts with the playwright Lucy Prebble, and broadcast last year.
Billie Piper’s ambitious, darkly funny directorial debut suggests the arrival of a new filmmaker with a vision, verve and a voice.
To be sure, there are moments where the film’s studied quirkiness achieves something close to Piper’s objective, but the movie is so maddeningly uneven and brazenly combative that it’s hard to surrender to its ambition.
Rich. Spoiled. Hunted.
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