Lila Neugebauer

The Beast in Me (2025) works best when Claire Danes and Matthew Rhys are testing one another. Lila Neugebauer's patient attention to actors suits these encounters, and we value her ability to make a conversation uncomfortable. Antonio Campos and Tyne Rafaeli also direct the series, so its successes and frustrations should not all be assigned to her. But its preference for psychological unease over a brisk investigation fits her wider interest in intimate character studies.

Her theatre work helps explain the attention to people in a room together. In The Wolves (2017), the strength lay in ensemble playing and the precise timing of complex group scenes. Her first feature, Causeway (2022), starring Jennifer Lawrence and Brian Tyree Henry, carried that interest into a more intimate character study. Appropriate (2023), by Branden Jacobs-Jenkins, continued the stage work with clarity and restraint. Across these works, she seems more interested in how performers respond to each other than in giving us something conspicuous to admire.

Lyle Vincent's cinematography gives the encounters in The Beast in Me a horror-film unease. We felt uneasy watching Danes and Rhys test each other, because the uncertainty about Nile makes their exchanges feel dangerous. Loren Weeks's production design supplies a glossy finish, which is handsome but makes the threat feel too comfortably packaged. The atmosphere holds while the two leads are testing one another. When their relationship stops developing, the care taken over the presentation becomes less persuasive.

At eight parts, the series keeps Danes and Rhys circling long after the writing has run short of things to say. Their performances still make it worth considering for anyone drawn to psychological thrillers, but the direction cannot supply the missing developments.