Rare Beasts

Unconventional, feminist, sassy, chaotic and wild take on romantic comedy in the British actor Billie Piper’s vibrant directorial début.

Piper plays Mandy, a single mother with a deeply cynical view on love. Yet in an attempt to find a way of living with a partner, she gets into a strange relationship with Pete, who is a mix between a wimp and a misogynist know-it-all who seems to be a bad match for the confrontative but vulnerable Mandy. Rare Beasts is rife with difficult people who are hard to like (David Thewlis plays an egocentric father) and an impossible, raw mix of kitchen-sink realism, dream-like musical elements and rattling discussions – with the message that it is impossible to get everything you want. Against all odds Piper succeeds at making us love both her Mandy and the film.

• Camilla Larsson