Léa Seydoux is starring in “The Beast”, a love story that spans three eras with a science fiction backdrop.

Presented at the Venice Film Festival

Presented in the official selection at the 2023 Venice Film Festival, The Beast marks the return of Bertrand Bonello behind the camera. The director films here a love story through time, carried by Léa Seydoux and George MacKay, in a brilliantly directed SF feature film.
Léa Seydoux and Gaspard Ulliel : this is the casting that should have composed Bertrand Bonello’s new project. However, the premature death of the actor, following a skiing accident in 2022, forced the director a few months later to replace his favorite actor – with whom he had filmed Yves Saint-Laurent (2014) and Coma (2022) – by British actor George MacKay.

Léa Seydoux and George MacKay. It is therefore around these two performers that The Beast, a free adaptation of Henry James’ short story, The Beast in the Jungle (1903), revolves today. The work of the English author serves here as a starting point for the story of Bertrand Bonello, who also serves as screenwriter, and offers through several eras a modern interpretation of the short novel.
2044. Artificial intelligence has taken control of our society and human emotions have become a threat. To get rid of it, Gabrielle (Léa Seydoux) chooses to plunge back into her previous lives – in 1910 and 2014 – to find her great love, Louis (George MacKay). But this journey through time promises to be macabre and the young woman, in each era, is haunted by a dark presentiment. A catastrophe is about to happen; a strange beast prowls through his memories.
Bonello miraculously manages to depict three eras with very different atmospheres and tones, while keeping an emotional thread combining the fear of love and the certainty that a catastrophe will occur. This sentimental coherence is made possible by the astonishing performance of Léa Seydoux, whose face offers a burning palette of emotions and anguish opposite a George MacKay (1917) fascinating in cold restraint.