AMC's The Beast Must Die is a must-watch for Cush Jumbo and Jared Harris' amazing performances

Indiewire

"Honestly, watching Jumbo and Harris verbally dance around each other is half the fun," Kristen Lopez says of the British stars in their six-episode limited series thriller adaptation of Cecil Day-Lewis' novel. "Both characters are playing roles that constantly shift based on what we, the audience, believe each knows about the other. Jumbo keeps Frances on tenterhooks, holding in a shudder or gasp whenever George is nearby. Harris, to his credit, makes George just as charming as he can be. The character is a horrible person, all that we’ve come to expect from a privileged white guy, and yet it’s easy to see how he’s kept people wrapped around his finger." Lopez adds: "Too often in shows about women losing children, they’re four-hanky melodramas. Here, with Jumbo in the lead, the character skirts the line between justice and revenge, never entering Killing Eve territory, but staying away from telling another tragic tale of what women do when their children pass. It cannot be overstated how amazing Jumbo is in the role. So much of her plan requires a sense of manipulation, starting with her ingratiating herself into the life of young model, Lena (Mia Tomlinson), who might yield a lead toward Marty’s killer."

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• Cush Jumbo, Billy Howle, and Jared Harris elevate a relatively soapy story: "Examining the manner in which trauma and grief can lead people to make very bad decisions, The Beast Must Die also examines privilege and its ability to make people into monsters by giving them lives that never contain consequences," says Brian Tallerico. "There are times when the filmmaking here underlines the mental states of its character a little too boldly, but the acting carries the project as the trio carve out fascinating, memorable people who feel completely distinct from the plot’s twists and turns. I’m not completely sure it sticks the landing, but I’ll remember these three people when the year ends, and sometimes that’s enough to make a mini-series worth watching."
• The Beast Must Die should've been an excellent series: "The Beast Must Die chooses to eliminate the mystery very early on. The murderer is obvious; what’s less obvious is how Frances, and to a much lesser extent Nigel, will be able to prove it," says Allison Keene. "While there are intriguing traces of a psychological thriller, maybe even a horror, that are suggested at this point, none of it is capitalized on. The characters, including Frances and Nigel, exist only to move the plot and—other than one terrible incident in each of their lives—don’t have much interiority or past beyond that. The shallow conception of our leads as well as the wealthy Rattery family makes the show’s ending after just a brisk six episodes all the more disappointing."
• Rest assured, The Beast Must Die story remains plenty nasty: "Day-Lewis (yes, actor Daniel’s father) came up with such a sophisticated yet primal tale of grief, deception and revenge that evolving sensibilities can’t repress its reptile allure," says Ben Strauss. "Not even serious changes to two of the main characters alter the narrative’s fundamentals, though one plays out more successfully than the other. Cush Jumbo, best known for her role as Lucca Quinn on The Good Wife/Good Fight, is calculating, heartbreaking and terrific as Frances Cairnes."
• Cush Jumbo on the challenge of her The Beast Must Die role: "I knew it would be emotionally demanding, but I didn't really know what kind of head space it would put me in," she says. "I'm not a method actor, I'm more of an actor who uses substitution. So ordinarily, you may only have to film so many days a week, you can kind of put those feelings down the other days of the week and move on. But in this role, I was really doing most of it; 95 percent of my week was in this head space. And the way that Frances operates is that whatever she's doing, whether she's pretending to be somebody else, trying to trick people or convince people or dealing with her current feelings, she's always carrying with her this continuous sense of grief. And that is more exhausting than I had anticipated. It takes a lot out of you. And yet it means that you really start to empathize with the character because you'll realize, wow, she has to have the energy to spring between characters and to keep changing what position she's in whilst always carrying it with this sense of, 'I just want to curl up into a ball and disappear.'"