On Screen: “The Beast in Me”
The Beast in Me
In “The Beast in Me,” Claire Danes plays Agatha ‘Aggie’ Wiggins, a Pulitzer Prize-winning author living alone in a large, ramshackle house in the wealthy enclave of Oyster Bay on suburban Long Island. She’s suffering from writer’s block and a long-standing resentment against a local teenager who was involved when a car crash killed her young son five years earlier.
Suddenly her space is invaded by a creepy new neighbor, Nile Jarvis (Matthew Rhys), a notorious New York City real estate tycoon widely rumored to have murdered his first wife Madison who disappeared without a trace.
That’s how this tense, eight-episode psychological thriller begins.
Nile wants to construct a neighborhood jogging path through the adjacent communally owned woods, an easement which Aggie opposes. In an attempt to win her approval for the project, arrogant Nile befriends Aggie, who decides to abandon the ‘prestige’ book she’s struggling with and, instead, write about him.
That worries his billionaire father, Martin (Jonathan Banks), who is awaiting final city approval of a big land deal and is concerned that Aggie’s rehashing the ‘Madison murder’ will endanger that, particularly since FBI Agents Brian Abbott (David Lyons) and Erika Breton (Hertienne Park) are hovering around.
Creator-writer Gabe Rotter (“X-Files”) and showrunner Howard Gordon (“Homeland”) have crafted a compelling crime drama that’s filled with emotional baggage: hers, his, and that of Aggie’s ex-wife-artist Shelley (Natalie Morales) and Nile’s current wife-former secretary, Nina (Brittany Snow).
In an interview with Tudum.com, Gordon explains: “The title of the series comes from a Johnny Cash song — but it’s not as simple as it might originally seem. It really is about all of our complicity. Whether it’s about Monica Lewinsky or Amanda Knox or Nile Jarvis, sometimes we’re quick to make assumptions. But when we are forced to look at it from another angle, do we have the humility and the compassion to listen and to revise the narrative?”
On the Granger Gauge of 1 to 10, “The Beast in Me” is a slick, suspenseful 6 — with all episodes streaming on Netflix.
Susan Granger is a product of Hollywood. Her natural father, S. Sylvan Simon, was a director and producer at M.G.M. and Columbia Pictures. Her adoptive father, Armand Deutsch, produced movies at M.G.M.
As a child, Susan appeared in movies with Abbott & Costello, Red Skelton, Lucille Ball, Margaret O’Brien, and Lassie. She attended Mills College in California, studying journalism with Pierre Salinger, and graduated from the University of Pennsylvania with highest honors in journalism.