‘The Beast in Me’ Review: Claire Danes and Matthew Rhys Bring Depth to a Familiar Thriller (Netflix)
After the death of her son, a novelist (Claire Danes) becomes obsessed with her enigmatic neighbor (Matthew Rhys), a man once accused of murdering his wife. As she starts writing his biography, their uneasy bond spirals into a psychological duel that blurs the line between investigation and self-destruction.
There’s probably no better proof of how much a strong cast can elevate a conventional series than The Beast in Me. With Claire Danes and Matthew Rhys leading the way — joined by Brittany Snow, Natalie Morales, and none other than Jonathan “Mike Ehrmantraut” Banks — this eight-part series created by Gabe Rotter becomes far more engaging and layered than its premise suggests. Put another way: the convoluted, overstuffed plot often feels like it was generated by an AI trained on dozens of prestige thrillers and mystery novels and told to blend them into one. Yet thanks to its cast, The Beast in Me occasionally comes to life — and even manages to unsettle.
Always intense, jittery, and on the verge of breaking down, Claire Danes seems born to play Aggie Wiggs, a novelist in crisis after the death — or was it an “accident”? — of her son, Cooper. Separated from her wife (Natalie Morales), a visual artist, unable to write the follow-up to her wildly successful and Pulitzer Prize winning memoir, and permanently tense, Aggie’s life takes another turn when she learns that her new neighbor is Niles Jarvis (Rhys), a wealthy businessman planning to privatize nearby land — a move she fiercely opposes.
But that’s hardly the only issue with Niles. The man became infamous after the suspicious disappearance of his wife, whose body was never found. Although he was acquitted, most people still believe he got away with murder. The way Rhys plays him leaves little doubt: whether or not he’s a killer, he exudes a chilling, near-psychopathic demeanor. When a neighbor Aggie blames for her son’s death suddenly vanishes, she becomes convinced Niles is responsible — perhaps to impress her, or to push her into signing over that piece of land.
That’s only the beginning of an increasingly tangled web. Aggie convinces Niles to let her write his biography — a supposed win-win arrangement: she can overcome her writer’s block while secretly investigating whether he killed his wife (and maybe her son’s «killer», too), while he hopes to use the project to soften her stance on his business deal. But of course, things aren’t that simple. Parallel threads follow Niles’s new wife (Brittany Snow), a gallery owner; his intimidating father (Banks), a ruthless businessman; the family’s shady political dealings and real estate corruption; Aggie’s fraught relationship with her ex; and above all, the guilt and trauma that still consume her.
The Beast in Me opens multiple windows at once — one involving FBI agents quietly tracking Jarvis — and though it’s stylishly directed and narratively coherent, it rarely escapes the familiar beats of serialized “prestige noir.” Some subplots vanish abruptly; others suddenly take over; and the carefully assembled chain of cause and effect sometimes feels a little too neat. Still, those by-now standard clichés of the streaming-era thriller are made convincing by the cast and by the assured direction of Antonio Campos (Afterschool, Simon Killer), who helms four episodes and knows exactly how to probe dark, damaged psyches.
Danes, who spent eight seasons perfecting the art of breakdown in Homeland, once again delivers a master class in emotional volatility. Her Aggie is a woman perpetually on the edge of a nervous breakdown and her face registers a thousand conflicting emotions at once, few of them peaceful. Rhys, extraordinary in The Americans, transforms here into a man whose smooth menace conceals something far more complex, perhaps even wounded. He’s clearly dangerous, but Rhys makes us want to know why.
In the end, The Beast in Me is neither more nor less than a solidly crafted but minor psychological thriller — a polished piece of entertainment with half a dozen intersecting storylines, engaging enough even when you can see its twists coming from a mile away. What makes it memorable is the strange bond between Aggie and Niles: not just a collision of two damaged souls, but a blurred space where writing becomes investigation and obsession turns into self-revelation. In trying to unmask him, Aggie may really be trying to unmask herself.
