Rare Beasts (2021)

Rare Beasts is special because it treats the romantic comedy like a machine you can take apart, flip inside out, and rebuild into something bracingly honest about love, power, and the stories we tell ourselves to survive. Billie Piper’s directorial debut has the confidence of a filmmaker with nothing to prove and plenty to say, blending sharp humor with a raw, restless ache that feels closer to real adulthood than most screen romances dare to go. The vibe is exhilaratingly confrontational yet deeply human: messy people reaching for connection while the ground beneath modern identity keeps shifting. It’s not a cozy date-night charmer—its intelligence comes with teeth—but if you want a bold, inventive film that leaves you thinking (and wincing, and laughing) in equal measure, it’s absolutely worth the leap.

Rare Beasts is clearly aiming for a jagged, provocative rom-com/drama about modern gender politics, emotional damage, and the messy ways people try to feel whole again. The problem is it often mistakes chaos for insight: scenes lurch from idea to idea without enough wit or depth to make the themes land, so what should feel sharp can come off flat, shallow, or even a bit mean-spirited. If you like polished, character-led romance with satisfying emotional payoffs, this will likely feel frustrating and unsatisfying. But if you’re up for a deliberately abrasive, talky, “swing for the fences” indie that values discomfort over charm, you may appreciate its nerve and occasional flashes of honesty.