Don’t let the normies get to you; making sense is the most overrated virtue in all of cinema. Sure, a little basic legibility goes a long way in procedural dramas and action flicks, but movie making is a grand illusion, and some of its best points are scored with immediate lucidity somewhere on the back burner. You wouldn’t know it from watching the tentpoles of Christopher Nolan or the gumshoe exploits of David Fincher, each too drawn toward pragmatism to let dream logic infiltrate their narratives, even when that very liminal, shapeless space would seem to be the subject. No shade at two of our modern masters, but there are other ways to spin a good yarn that are worthy of similar reverence, and not all of them are hell bent on neatly knotting the threads. If you ask Bertrand Bonello, the miracle is in the mess.

It’s certainly not in proper adaptation, with the French director’s latest, The Beast, using Henry James’ 1903 novella The Beast in the Jungle for little more than spare parts. The launching pad is at least similar, concerning a Parisian socialite named Gabrielle (Léa Seydoux) whose doom-infused ideations are kept secret from her doting, doll-making husband Georges (Martin Scali). These brooding concerns are best laid at the feet of a stranger, though Gabrielle probably wasn’t expecting to ever see Louis (George MacKay) again when she gave them voice six years earlier. This sudden reappearance leads to a clandestine courtship, the kind that will prove unavoidable throughout the centuries, as the film hops between 1910, 2014, and 2044, with only its two lead performers as ostensible connective tissue. Their names remain a constant, as does Gabrielle’s waking nightmare, but everything else is fluid, using subjectivity as a north star and thematic doubling as an adhesive.

Whether our headlining duo is playing reincarnated versions of themselves or mere echoes in history’s long and winding hallway is left up to question, though the particulars at hand suggest a set track. Each narrative involves a natural disaster (or its aftermath), an unintentionally foreboding psychic medium, and ruminations on the gulf between internal lives and those we project. Free will is a constant concern in intellectually inclined sci-fi flicks, but the screenplay here, written by Bonello with story credits for Benjamin Charbit and Guillaume Bréaud, suggests a different proposition, wherein our independently made choices are forced to contend with preordained circumstances. It’s no mistake that Georges’ dolls are all modeled in Gabrielle’s image; A steely, forward-facing appearance matters more in the factory than when your new owners get to play god in the living room.

Her husband isn’t the only one obsessed with Seydoux’s resting show of strength, and it’s hard to imagine anyone else inhabiting this role and having a functional movie to show for it. The former ingénue has become one of the most compelling performers in all of world cinema, her impenetrable stoicism only heightening our desire to know what’s going on underneath the surface. If enigma could take corporeal form, it would be in her shape, and many of The Beast’s highfalutin aims would miss wide right without an actor who provides mysterious allure the instant she walks through the door. Bonello and cinematographer Josée Deshaies simply can’t get enough of her, the endless close-ups of her face forcing all else to recede into a hazy middle distance.

Wagering on your lead thespian’s ability to hold an audience captive is an admirable bet, and while most rolls turn up sevens, there are a few twelves along the way. Such is the reality of permitting something this opaque to slowly unfurl over the course of 145 minutes, practically daring the viewer to cry boredom. We occasionally oblige, especially during the 20th century will-they-won’t-they of the first hour, whose slow-bore reluctance toward aesthetic showmanship could use a cup of coffee. Same goes for the 2044 section, which seemingly assumes that any stabs as futuristic worldbuilding would distract from the cognitive task at hand. It helps to have a true blue siren luring you into these murky, head-spinning waters, and while MacKay attempts a complimentary form of inscrutability with surprising success, Seydoux is in another league.

He’s better when the intentions are less guarded, playing a wrathful incel in the 2014 timeline with riveting, diseased bluster. His incessant, revolting social media posts initially read as pure petulance, but the danger presented by both the man and his paradigm slowly grows until your palms start sweating. Putting aside what is and isn’t hazardous to depict on the silver screen, the quasi-contemporary storyline inflicts an involuntary paralysis reserved for only the most accomplished thrillers, its position in the movie’s closing stretch ensuring that Bonello’s film will linger long after the credits roll.

For a largely stayed production, the director is awfully deft at ratcheting up tension when he sees fit, a late-breaking home invasion and a yesteryear faux-biblical flood causing blood to race and hearts to pump. Maybe he’s just proving a point about roads not taken, clarifying that the lack of visceral friction represents a preference rather than an inability. It would be in keeping with the omnipresent motif of autonomy within confines, but perhaps Bonello is too taken with the juiciness of his central concept to make time for more pulse pounding.

After all, ‘star-crossed romantic antagonists’ is a pretty enticing elevator pitch, though the simple pleasures suggested by that rudimentary logline are thwarted at every turn. What we get is far more abstract, and just as the primary players here are forced to reckon with past lives long after their expiration, The Beast’s meditations only flower in earnest days after your first encounter. You might need further exposure to hold the thing in your hands, but reassembling it in your mind’s eye is a rewarding endeavor, with enough food for thought to last through the dreariest of winters. It’s up to you to make the numbers add up.