A DISASTROUS date quickly sets the tone for Swindon-born star Billie Piper's impressive directing debut Rare Beasts.

Her character Mandy endures an arrogant lecture about what women are really like from unpromising new beau Paul (Leo Ball) and wonders aloud if he's a psychopath.

In a typical rom-com, Paul would be glimpsed briefly in a comic montage of awkward encounters then vanish without trace. But here, he hangs around like a bad smell.

Struggling with self-doubt, the reassuring mantras Mandy repeats to herself each morning aren't working, so she settles into a routine of trading kisses and caustic insults with this controlling, demoralising bore.

She soon notices similarities between this stifling new relationship and the dysfunctional one that caused her parents Marion (Kerry Fox) and Vic (David Thewlis) to split up.

Along with all this love and hate, the film tackles workplace harassment, religious hypocrisy, feminism, parenting a child with behavioural problems, and how a difficult upbringing can ruin the next generation.

It does get a bit tough to bear at times but there are laughs in here, honest. A lifeline, both for Mandy and the viewer, is her young son Larch (Toby Woolf) who provides the film's heart and is far more emotionally mature than her partner.

Billie directs with a stylish flair that lightens the heavy subject matter and creates a surreal slice of life where people's inner thoughts spill out unprompted as Mandy's daydreams intrude on her usual routine.

The line between reality and imagination is often blurred, which leads to some sudden swerves into the fantastical which keeps things entertaining and unpredictable.

Billie Piper gives a vulnerable but forceful performance and, as director, manages to get just as much from her cast.

Both Fox and Thewlis are convincing as her resigned mum and deadbeat dad, and Leo Ball is skin-crawlingly repulsive from minute one as the most hateable film character in recent memory.

The script is full of scathing one-liners and blunt truths that seem to come from a genuine emotional place - and maybe Billie's own life experience.

A scattershot approach sees some points made in a powerful way while other scenes abruptly end and I was left wondering what the desired reaction was supposed to be.

However, an ambitious but messy film is preferable to a boring but competent one, and I’m looking forward to whatever Billie writes and directs next - 3.5/5