The Beast in Me: A Psychological Duel Between Good and Evil

Oyster Bay, New York. In a residential area near a wooded area lives Agatha "Aggie" Wiggs, a Pulitzer Prize-winning writer who for years has been unable to complete her second book. The protagonist of The Beast in Me is a woman shattered by grief, having never overcome the loss of her young son, who died in a car accident caused by a drunk driver. A dramatic loss, which not only destroyed her marriage to Shelley, but also her ability to write and lead a normal life.

One day, Aggie's life takes an unexpected turn when Nile Jarvis, a real estate billionaire accompanied by his second wife Nina, moves into the property next to hers. A heavy shadow hangs over the man: his first wife Madison disappeared years ago in an alleged suicide, but many believe that he himself eliminated her under unproven circumstances. The encounter between them could not be more confrontational, with Aggie firmly opposing Nile's plans for modernizing the neighborhood. But this initial tension becomes the spark the writer needed: Nile could indeed be the perfect subject for her new book.

The Beast in Me: Beasts and Men

The inspiration behind The Beast in Me is quite evident for those who know the story or have seen the documentary that recounted it, namely The Jinx (2015), which followed magnate Robert Durst, later convicted of murder, in his conversations with director Andrew Jarecki. The narrative structure is substantially the same: a rich and powerful businessman suspected of having killed his wife who decides to confide in someone, perhaps hoping to find understanding or more likely to manipulate the narrative in his favor.

Eight episodes for this new Netflix miniseries that takes us on a whirlwind of more or less predictable plot twists, as captivating in its premises as it is excessively timid when it approaches the actual reckoning, which lacks any real flashes or surprises that would derail the story from that track now taken for granted by everyone.

The screenplay thus focuses on the figure of Aggie, a Claire Danes without makeup or pretense who, also serving as a producer, must have had a certain margin of maneuver to give herself several key scenes, where she showcases exercises in skill. And the cast is precisely one of the strengths of the operation, with an equally excellent Matthew Rhys in the role of a diabolical villain always ready to conceal his true intentions behind that reassuring smile.

Hunting the Monster

The collective fascination with serial killers or alleged ones, evidenced weekly by the rankings of the most-watched true-crime titles on platforms, has left little room to explore the other side of the fence, that of those who must enter the mind of the monster, risking contamination. But this decision also entails compromises: the character of Nile is less defined and nuanced than he could have been, depriving the viewer of the psychological complexity that such a role would have required to be believable and not subservient to archetypes.

The overall duration of The Beast in Me also seems poorly justified, with the entire story potentially unfolding in four or five episodes at most: indeed, several dead times and a couple of subplots that are not perfectly cohesive and integrated crop up, risking to stifle the actual tense battle between the two protagonists. And episode seven, with the long flashback that reveals the truth widely intuited by everyone since the false leads were never insisted upon properly, has the flavor of a didactic explanation that definitively deflates the suspense leading up to the season finale.

The miniseries aims to show how grief and anger can transform anyone, suggesting that within each of us hides a beast ready to emerge under the "right" circumstances. A fascinating theme not fully explored, with characters who remain too anchored to their predetermined roles: victims and perpetrators, in a game of opposites seeking similarities and resemblances under the blows of a cruel destiny that spares no one and nothing.