Beast review – down-and-out MMA fighter film is predictable but still lands punches

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Directed by Tyler Atkins and co-written by Russell Crowe, this Australian feature follows a familiar playbook – but you’ll find yourself surprisingly invested Ah, yes: the promising fighter who could’ve been a contender, could’ve been a champion. But then life intervened: bad decisions were made, promises broken, the wrong paths taken. But what if the past came knocking on his door? What if our long-in-the-tooth hero could have another crack, set things right, get in the ring one more time? To say that Tyler Atkins’ Australian martial arts drama Beast plucks moves from a well-worn playbook is putting it lightly. This is one of those genre films in which nothing surprises in broad terms; it’s the small pivots and deviations that matter. Given the ring of familiarity surrounding everything, I was surprised to find myself as invested in the film as I was, particularly because so many chest-thumping sports movies are already out there, many of which I find about as intellectually engaging ...
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‘I am all for strangeness’: Tilda Swinton on artistic integrity, acting and the afterlife

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The Oscar-winning Scottish actor answers questions from Observer readers and famous fans including Pedro Almodóvar, Wes Anderson and Elton John

Tilda Swinton has been posing in different costumes for the Observer’s photographer and, as I arrive, has just changed into tartan trousers, saucy two-tone shoes and is standing perfectly still as a hairdresser attends to a blond quiff that makes her look like an incredible exotic bird – or a dandy hooligan, although her face looks too seraphic to mutate into aggro. What you see almost at once is that Swinton is giving 100% to the task at hand while being obligingly considerate to everyone around her. The mix of professionalism with warmth disarms, especially when you might have expected a superstar loftiness.

For Swinton is a superstar – ranked by the New York Times as one of the greatest actors of the 21st century. Original, distinctive and questing, she has played everything from a distraught mother in Lynne Ramsay’s We Need to Talk about Kevin (2011) to the ancient, querulous Madame D in Wes Anderson’s The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014) and the White Witch in the Narnia series (2005-2010). She was in Almodóvar’s short The Human Voice (2020) and is about to star in his next full-length feature (details still under wraps). She is a chameleon yet always herself. She has won an Academy award, a Bafta, been nominated for three Golden Globes and, having just turned 63, is still seen as a fashion icon of androgynous beauty with an unchanging profile – like a figurehead on the prow of a ship. What a difference there must be, I’m thinking as I watch her in front of the camera, between her “real” life in the Scottish Highlands by the sea and all this London razzmatazz.

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