The Beast In Me
- Dr. Lloyd
- 2 hours ago
- 3 min read
A Series Review, streaming on Netflix
By Dr. Lloyd Sederer
She’s (Aggie Wiggs, played with mounting suspense and terror by the gifted Clare Danes) a hugely successful writer who, for two years, cannot put words to paper for her next book, which she knows is as best a soporific; while she is running out of the advance money, and the patience she has been granted by her publisher. Her grief and fury are near the breaking point some four years after her eight-year-old son was killed by a drunk driver.
Her new next-door neighbor, Niles Jarvis (played with aplomb by Matthew Rhys, whose TV film character continues to be duplicitous, with the charm of a carnivorous yet polished psychopath), moves into a “drop dead” (in more ways than one) estate, is a ruthless real estate tycoon, where rumor has it that he murdered his first wife, whose body was never found. In addition to his new wife, he lives with two vicious dogs and a head-shaven, always dressed in black “fixer” (Tim Guinee), the agent of Nile’s also psychopathic father, Martin (Jonathan Banks, more grizzled than ever), hired to do his employer’s bidding, whatever that might be.
They live in the too tight community of Oyster Bay, NY.
Aggie and Niles are a perfect duo, each out for what they believe, erroneously, will make them rich, and modern-day legend. Aggie, however, is rageful about the local teenager she believes responsible for her son’s death. Niles, in addition to what we discover is an unending appetite for murder, is building a legacy, immense Manhattan building complex, Jarvis Yards, with his psychopathic father, Martin (Jonathan Banks). Or to mix metaphors, she is in need of a transfusion, and he is rumored to draw blood, when so moved.
The sparks begin when Nile’s menacing dogs appear at her front door, likely catching the scent of her edible, adorable, miniature white pup. The dogs curdle Aggie’s blood, which did not need much heat to get her boiling. But her bristle and rage is barely under the surface attracting Niles, while his shameless arrogance and charm draws her into his orbit.
She accepts his offer for lunch. His apology about the dogs (a symbol of their owner), is meant to draw her near. Her seething is a snack he cannot resist. He baits her by painting a picture of her fall from literary eminence to that of a has-been writer who needs both money to support her home and a better subject for her next book. Aggie needs to perfuse her self-regard and anemic writing, and Niles has the bloody red cells to give them life.
His bait quickly hooks Aggie. Instead of her writing the non-fiction book about Ruth Bader Ginsberg and Antonio Scalia, which she knows (and he underlines) will be DOA, he suggests she write a book about him. His narcissism is her tonic. She realizes that her story about him, a notorious tycoon rumored to have murdered his first wife, is already exhuming her from the grave her life has become. Niles’ tale smells like a story that will draw the readership and fame she hungers for, and the money she needs to restore her home, also collapsing beneath her. She wants to take Niles’s tentative offer to be the subject of her new book and bites at his offer. After keeping her waiting until she is even hungrier, he agrees.
Then the murders mount up, starting with the young man who killed Aggie’s son in a car accident. He too had gone missing, leaving what will be revealed as a faux suicide note. As did Nile’s first wife, he also had gone missing.
Enter the FBI. First by an alcoholic agent (a lurching bloodhound, Brian Abbot, deftly playing a chameleon character by David Lyons) failing on his assignment to find the body of Niles’ first wife. Then by his superior at the Agency (Erica Breton, played with sharp edges by Hettienne Park), who is having an affair with Abbott, and, also, not to be outdone by him, is on the Jarvis’ under-the-table payroll.
Finally entering this mélange is Niles’ current wife (Nina Jarvis, served up elegantly by Brittany Snow), whose stunning looks are a disguise for a mind on fire. She emerges the hero of this film.
The ensemble I describe is no fuzzy collection of lifeless characters (at least until many are dead). The fire in all these actors (led by the blaze of Danes and Rhys) gives us a conflagration of a cliff-hanger suspense story, replete with lethal characters proud of their work as well as those drawn to their deadly, seductive flame. Your psychiatrist reviewer could not turn away from Netflix’s The Beast In Me
Lloyd Sederer, MD, is a psychiatrist, public health doctor, and non-fiction doctor.