The Beast, the ‘purest science fiction’ movie, has a trailer and release date
One of the bigger stories to come out of 2023’s Toronto International Film Festival was Bertrand Bonello’s science fiction movie The Beast, a dizzying, surreal story about a woman, Gabrielle (Léa Seydoux), reliving three past lives as part of a process to purge her memories and emotions. In each of these lives, she encounters Louis (George MacKay of 1917 and Marrowbone) in a series of emotional relationships that lead in dangerous directions. Critics’ responses were split between strong positives and dubious negatives, but they seemed to agree that it’s a remarkably image-driven, idea-packed film that’s sensual and challenging. The comparison to the Wachowskis’ Cloud Atlas seemed obvious, too, given the separate but linked stories of people echoing across time together.