The Beast Within

It happens to every family with secrets. There comes a point when kids grow up and start to ask questions, when trying to shut them down only makes them more curious. Private difficulties that couples somehow managed to deal with together begin to spill over. Kids become aware that their parents are full separate people and start to wonder about the other aspects of their lives, at the same time as they reflect on what that could mean for their own futures. Grandfather Waylon (James Cosmo), with a little more perspective, sees this coming. He tries to warn Imogen (Ashleigh Cummings): she won’t be able to carry on as she has done forever.

Kit Harington has gone through a lot of personal difficulties since Game Of Thrones, and it can’t have helped that, despite a few other leading roles, he seems unable to shake off the shadow of Jon Snow. When our first glimpse of him here is as a figure huddled in a heavy fur cape, well, one begins to worry. He’s portraying a man who lives in a walled compound in the woods, and later in the film he will declare himself a king. Is he just not getting offered anything different? That said, viewers who feel affectionate towards Snow may be off guard in just the right way for some of what he delivers as the story develops. It’s not deep (the role being somewhat under-written), but it does the job

We don’t see much of him to begin with because the story unfolds from the perspective of 10-year-old Willow (played by Caoilinn Springall, recently seen opposite Aisling Franciosi in Stopmotion), who doesn’t see a lot of her dad. He’s always disappearing, especially around the full moon, and on those occasions he always comes back in a desperate state. He spends a lot of time shut in his room. She sees her mother secretively washing blood out of a fur he wore. The audience gets other little clues, observing things that Willow probably doesn’t pay conscious attention to, like the way she tenses up when he reaches for her, wary of his tight embraces and vigorous games, where another child might be wholly immersed in the action.

The world we see through Willow’s eyes is impressionistic. Mood matters as much as action, gesture and expressions as much as dialogue. Cummings is fantastic, fully immersed in the role of a woman torn between her love for each of the men in her life – her father making no secret of his wish that she leave her husband – and her own desire for freedom, as she finds it harder and harder to ignore her growing fear for herself and her child. On a drive into the nearby town, she stops and swaps the clothes that are practical on their little farm for a yellow floral dress. As she pulls off her shirt, Willow notices the bruises on her pale torso. Yet with her fear often manifesting in urgent instructions which feel like unreasonable orders, she’s pushing the child away.

It can’t go on like this, and with Imogen unwilling to let go, the danger is that resolution will come from some other quarter. Following her parents one night, Willow sees things that she shouldn’t. There’s a story about a family curse. Her father makes her swear a solemn vow. he also tells her that her grandfather is a good man. he can’t explain why they are at odds.

The answers when they come, are not very surprising, and likewise their probable consequences, but that’s a little bit beside the point. Whilst the film could certainly do with tightening up the pace or exploring its themes more deeply, it works well as a character study. Conflict and efforts to escape might excite the average genre fan more, but there’s plenty of potential in exploring more challenging questions around why people stick around and endure what they do. The house in which the story takes place is full of lovingly drawn details which speak to the particularity of love. The atmosphere it generates, for good or ill, will long outlast its inhabitants.

The Beast Within screened as part of the 2024 Fantasia International Film Festival.