PET

Pet is a captive-woman story, with a strong focus on the personality of her fragile captor, played by the excellent Dominic Monaghan. A shy man, who inevitably arouses our empathy, falls in love with a young woman, whom he conveniently imagines to be a lost soul. But when she rejects him, he kidnaps her, locks her in a cage and keeps her there against her will. From this point on, Carles Torrens’s lm is about reversals in relationships. Despite the imperatives of a closed-space setting, a series of twists and turns continually alters the power balance between the two. A tale of pretence and a well-written gory thriller, Pet skilfully destabilises audience expectations.