Rare Beats is a Defiant Anti-Romance

Originally published in Inter:Mission Magazine

"Rare Beasts is the romance film as never seen before, tapping into the female experience of oppression, patriarchy and self-loathing that so often accompanies romantic experiences."

Billie Piper’s directorial debut Rare Beasts is an extravagant, theatrical, emotional musing on the lived female experiences of work, relationships and life. Impressively, she both directed, wrote and stars as the lead in this abstract feature exploring the dark interior lives of its characters. “No one wants to read about miserable women” says one women in the film; Piper, however, is determined to explore all the negative emotions and trauma that women encounter in their lives.

Since radical, female-lead TV programmes such as Fleabag and I May Destroy You erupted onto the scene, the way women are being depicted on screen is changing dramatically. These altered depictions are deeply refreshing, what with their uncompromising and unafraid revelations of female truths. Piper’s film is certainly no exception to this trend, her exploration of femininity equally radical.

Rare Beasts opens with Mandy (Billie Piper) on a first date with Pete (Leo Bill). Pete is obviously detestable; he openly despises women yet claims he can’t live without them. Mandy comments with crude, dark humour that he sounds like a rapist. His anti-feminism is shocking and terrifying. Surprisingly though, the two enter into a masochistic relationship. One is left wondering, what is it that Mandy is seeking from this figure? In one revealing scene, Mandy undresses herself from head to toe, stark naked in the dimness of her kitchen, verbally revealing everything she hates about herself to Pete. He seems to agree with her words. While Mandy claims her body and Pete’s perception of it, this defiant act is troubling. Pete is no alleviation for Mandy’s insecurities, but a confirmation. This seems to be what she likes about him.

Rare Beasts is the romance film as never seen before, tapping into the female experience of oppression, patriarchy and self-loathing that so often accompanies romantic experiences. We hear lines from women in the film such as, “We can see through all the arrogance and rage, don’t love lightly” and “I felt like my life was a tribute to your life’’. Piper clearly sees women in heterosexual relationships shaping themselves to the male gaze. Love is shown by Piper through a glass, darkly.

Inevitably, the relationship is headed towards destruction. In one poignant scene, Pete and Mandy see each other post-break up, with Pete patronisingly commenting that he just wants ‘to be sure she will be okay’. This is all too classic a line, men playing the caring hero for the broken damsel, refusing to take accountability for fucking up that very same woman’s life. Moments later, with a thrill of absurdist theatrically, a chorus of women jeer at Pete, throwing an array of items at him. But Mandy voices the unpopular, but perhaps truthful, opinion that she ‘just wants a man’ despite everything Pete has put her through. She is sucked into the world of her own oppression, relishing in the highs and lows of it.

At times Pete seemed to be too obvious a caricature of the toxic and unkind man, missing the nuance of the male experience of the patriarchy. But admittedly, this is not where Piper wanted to take the film. Rare Beasts focuses entirely on the female, and maybe a black-and-white man fulfils such an aim.

This is a gloriously unique film that doesn’t fit neatly into one generic category. At times it is musical in nature, Mandy’s rigorous and emotionally heated tap-dancing echoing the more whimsical and romantic elements of Lalaland. At other times, Rare Beasts is starkly absurdist, chiming with the preposterousness of films like ‘I’m Thinking of Ending Things and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. It’s cacophonic use of sound externalises inner emotions to intensely overwhelming affect. It is surprising that a film that is so light, musical and comedic can reveal so clearly the darkness of female emotions.

Mandy, like so many women, finds her trauma rooted in the patriarchy. But Rare Beasts examines the dark comfort Mandy seems to find hidden here, in a way rarely seen on screen.