"Ah, that's so disgusting!" exclaimed a horrified woman who was sitting next to me in Screen One of London's Odeon Luxe West End on a rainy Friday evening. She was referring to the gooey, vein-stricken cocoon Jeremy Pope was dramatically hatching out of after having sex with a gorgeous, mysterious woman dressed in a foreboding, funeral-esque black lace.
His character, also named Jeremy, had been infected with an STD that promised to make him remarkably beautiful; however, it came with a detonating price tag - quite literally. This was the storyline that played out over the course of episode one of Ryan Murphy's latest offering for Disney+, and if you are lost so far, don't worry, you are not alone.
According to the FX show's synopsis, the series' plot plays out like this: "When international supermodels begin dying in gruesome and mysterious ways, two FBI agents are sent to Paris, Venice, Rome and New York to uncover the truth behind these deaths and end up discovering a conspiracy that threatens the future of humanity."
If you are to believe The Beauty's star and producer Ashton Kutcher, who spoke to the audience at the London premiere that HELLO! also attended, explained that the freaky scenes are supposed to make us all ponder what we would be "willing to sacrifice, risk or do to become the most optimal version of yourself".
Sitting back in the comfortable armchair, sipping on a glass of champagne, I was not prepared for what started rolling across the screen. Against the soundtrack of The Prodigy's Firestarter, a chaotic energy engulfed the cinema as Bella Hadid broke the necks of people at a fashion show in Paris, gulped down gallons of water, and ultimately combusted into a pile of red flesh and fuming bones.
Starring Evan Peters and Rebecca Hall as FBI agents on the case, Cooper Madson and Jordan Bennett, let's dive into the niche spectacle that is The Beauty…
What happens in the first few episodes of The Beauty?
Admittedly, we were only shown the first two episodes, so there is potential for things to veer off in different directions. However, as far as the first two 40-ish minute episodes go, the state of play was… interesting, to say the least.
We are welcomed to the world of The Beauty by Evan and Rebecca's characters, who are enjoying mixing business with pleasure, setting the saucy tone for the rest of the series. They are sent to investigate a case after the Bella moment referenced above racked the streets of the French capital.
While that is going on, a subplot is introduced via Jeremy's character as we witness the poor soul gruesomely grapple with his perceived ugliness and inability to sleep with women. He searches the internet and is steered towards a meeting with an extremely botched doctor who promises a cure to his low self-esteem issues.
Flipping back and forth between the two plots, the episodes slowly reveal that the series will be about a lethal STD that is tearing through the modelling industry, causing an extremely fiery reaction in its recipients' bodies.
The search for answers continues for the FBI agents after Jeremy is reborn from his jelly cocoon, but takes a disastrous turn when Evan's character is chased by assassins unleashed by Ashton Kutcher at random, and Rebecca sleeps with a stranger and meets an unfortunate fate that results in an awkward transformation.
A screenplay not for the faint of heart
When it comes to Ryan Murphy projects, fans always expect the weird and the wonderful, but this time it was more than my stomach could handle. Zoomed-in shots highlighting ugly angles set the scene for the grotesque, and vats of slime powder dripping from naked bodies contorted my face into a permanent grimace.
The gore was gore-ing, and there really was no escape from the gruesome nature of the script. Every which way you looked, someone's innards were sprayed onto the screen, or flesh was fuming as the STD ate it from the inside out.
Most shockingly, the transformations undergone by characters presented as "in need of a glow-up" were the hardest scenes to watch. Writhing and bending as if possessed, the audience let out horrified gasps as we listened to the sound of bones cracking and reassembling into sharper angles.
What has Ashton said about his latest role?
Rather different from anything he has been a part of before, the rom-com king revealed what the project, in which he plays The Corporation, a tech billionaire who has secretly engineered a miracle drug, "The Beauty", taught him about beauty during a press conference attended by HELLO!.
"I think when I first decided to do this, I did a lot of thinking about what beauty is, and this show doesn't try to define it," the 47-year-old explained. He continued: "It lets the audience define what that is and just as a spectator of the screenplay that I was looking at, I just started to ask myself that question, 'What do you consider to be beautiful?'."
The star added: "I think every single person that you would talk to probably has a different definition of what that is and for me, it's imperfection that is beautiful. Having worked as a model and worked in the fashion industry for a while when I was younger, I met what I thought were the most beautiful people in the world and every single one of those people, if you ask them to look in the mirror, they could find that one thing they wish they could change."
"We're all these fabulous, beautiful works in progress that are learning and changing over time. If anything, the show made me think about that, and find that honest place within myself where I became accepting of my own imperfections and ambitious about changing."
If you are steel-stomached and brave enough to face the oozy dystopian world of The Beauty, it is out now on Disney+.
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