A culinary researcher’s reality unravels in this tight and twisty psychological thriller. Lingers in the memory long after.
In the star-studded 7th season of Black Mirror, Bête Noire is an anomaly, which, despite a lack of stars, provides an engaging experience.
Maria (Sienna Kelly) is a culinary researcher on the rise, working at an established food company. She develops a new recipe for a popular chocolate, and the episode starts on the day her new creation is being tested by a group of random people. To Maria’s surprise, one of the people invited for the tasting is an old classmate from her school days, Verity (Rose McEwen).
Verity also applies for a research assistant position at the company, which Maria swears is not an open position. When she double-checks the company’s website for open positions, she finds the job opening staring back at her. This begins Maria’s unsettling experience, where things change ever so slightly from how she remembers them.
Verity was a smart girl in school and sort of a computer whiz, so Maria deduces she is tweaking the internet to make things different from how Maria remembered them. The improbability of her theory puts the audience in two minds. A turning point in the show is when her colleagues discuss the name of a now out-of-business fast-food restaurant. Maria knows the name very well because her boyfriend used to work there and still owns a cap with its name on it. The next few minutes show Maria to be misremembering the name while Verity and the rest, including Maria’s boyfriend, are right.
In that intriguing moment, writer and creator Charlie Booker pushes the audience to search for the answer in their own memories since the first scene prominently displays the cap. The trick works, throwing the audience on the Vertigo-esque journey with Maria. Her conviction in her memories takes Maria, and the episode, to a WTF ending, but upon reflection, opines on the effect power tends to have on people.
Sienna Kelly as Maria, plays the position where women commonly find themselves at work, being judged for their emotions, effectively. Rose McEwen as Verity has the better part as someone observed through Maria’s perspective. When Verity’s motivations are revealed, so is the brilliance of McEwen’s performance.
51 minutes in length, Bête Noire is a tight psychological thriller that continues the Black Mirror tradition of lingering in the mind long after its viewing.
Verity – ‘I was such a geek at school, wasn’t I?’
Maria – ‘Well..’
Verity – ‘I I like lived in the computer room. Yeah, you were..I’m amazed you remember me at all because you were definitely popular.’
Maria – ‘I mean, I don’t know..’
Verity – ‘Oh yeah. No, no. Especially compared to me. Like, what was I?’