‘The Beasts’ Review: A Disturbing Look at a Deadlock Between Neighbors in Lawless Galicia
variety.comPeter Debruge Chief Film Critic Fiftysomething French couple Antoine and his wife Olga move to Galicia looking for a fresh start.
Instead, they find only hostility and hardship in Rodrigo Sorogoyen’s “The Beasts,” a deeply uncomfortable portrait of everyday evil that’s all the more terrifying for being true — not the two main characters, who are fictional, but the conflict that comes to define their new life in that wild corner of northwest Spain.
Antoine (played by Denis Ménochet, a sturdy bear-like man with a James Gandolfini-esque screen presence) buys a modest plot on a primeval slope, fixing up the crumbling stone cottage into something cozy enough to call home.
He and Olga (Marina Foïs, who is billed first, but takes her time to emerge as the film’s main character) are fully prepared to face the challenges of raising crops on such unforgiving soil.
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