Beth Dutton is always pushing us to the pain threshold in Yellowstone. But the biggest dichotomy of Kelly Reilly’s character also makes her a fan favorite.
Anyone who watches Yellowstone knows that there are many reasons to be enthusiastic about the modern western series. One of them is the name Beth. Whether you’ve just discovered the story of the Dutton family on Netflix or have been following along for a long time, Beth Dutton, played by Kelly Reilly, is a primal force. And like any elemental force, she can be terrible and beautiful at the same time. It is precisely the oscillation between the poles of engaging and repulsive characterization that makes her (and thus the whole series) so convincing.
Kelly Reilly enriches the Yellowstone cast enormously as Beth Dutton
Let’s be honest: the number of women in the Yellowstone cast is manageable. Each of them has to fight for their place in Taylor Sheridan’s tough man’s world. And none fights more formidably than Beth Dutton. With teeth and fists, she has worked hard to earn her place as the toughest member of the family under patriarch John Dutton (Kevin Costner).
(Yellowstone Tough, tougher, Beth)
This is all the more impressive because Kelly Reilly’s character was originally criticized as useless by HBO before series creator Taylor Sheridan found another home with Paramount. Reilly’s portrayal of Beth in the first episode was said to be too harsh, unsympathetic and aggressive. Today, Beth Dutton is one of the series’ biggest fan favorites.
Throughout her career, Kelly Reilly has repeatedly played the “Ice Queen”, a strong, albeit unapproachable female character. Her cool Caroline Bingley in Pride and Prejudice condescendingly schemed against the heroine and in Kenneth Branagh’s A Haunting in Venice she most recently played the inscrutable landlady. In this respect, the radical Beth Dutton from Yellowstone fits Reilly’s role perfectly. The tough bank expert could easily have become a decal of a “power woman”, but the British actress gets more out of her Beth Dutton.
Yellowstone’s Beth Dutton receives and causes pain
The way Kelly Reilly nails the Yellowstone staff to the wall time and again with her quick-witted remarks is one of the series’ great attractions. Because the only thing sharper than Beth’s mind is her tongue. Or as Taylor Sheridan sums up his main character: “Beth says what you wish you’d said.”
(Yellowstone Kelly Reilly as Beth Dutton)
At the same time, the unabashedly swearing Beth Dutton is also a battered character who has to go through a lot physically and emotionally in Yellowstone. This mixture of taking it and dishing it out gives her a vulnerable strength that, alongside colleagues like Michael Fassbender and Nicole Kidman, few stars can portray as convincingly as Kelly Reilly.
A good example is a scene in the 9th episode of season 2, in which Beth rushes to the aid of her harassed sister-in-law Monica (Kelsey Asbille). As the second major Yellowstone female character, Monica is meek and engaging, the complete antithesis of Beth. In a store, the indigenous woman is treated unpleasantly by the shopkeeper and police officers. Only Beth is able to free her from the “voluntary strip search” in the changing room. In the same breath, Kelly Reilly’s character manages to make a slug of the perpetrators present and build Monica up. Because in her toughness towards some, there are flashes of empathy for others. At heart, Beth is a person who rebels against injustice
(Yellowstone Beth & Rip)
Beth repeatedly gets violent or has to take a beating herself. In between, Yellowstone never forgets to show that Beth’s hard-won independence also puts obstacles in the way of her personal happiness. Rarely is our sympathy for the character greater than in the moments when she is unable to open up to ranch overseer Rip Wheeler (Cole Hauser). Even though she so obviously wants to. Even though his down-to-earth attitude could tame her inner fury to the benefit of both sides.
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The balance between bully and sympathetic character makes Beth the most complex Yellowstone character
Uniting coldness and emotion is an art Kelly Reilly has mastered. However, it is in the moments when she crosses the line that her Beth finally matures into a painfully three-dimensional character. Because anyone can love a strong-willed heroine, but what happens when that heroine becomes a bullying bully?
(Yellowstone Jamie & Beth Dutton)
This agonizing ambivalence is best demonstrated in Beth’s toxic treatment of her brother Jamie (Wes Bentley). She hates him like hardly anyone else in Yellowstone. When she pulverizes him with words, it regularly takes your breath away. The enmity between the two goes back to the moment in their childhood when Jamie convinced his pregnant teenage sister to have an abortion. Beth is also disgusted by the weakness of her family member, who is the slickest lawyer of all the Duttons and fits least into the image of the modern cowboy.
When Jamie reminds Beth that they are still a “family” in the best Vin Diesel manner after one of their numerous clashes, the sister sarcastically counters that “that word doesn’t qualify for absolution”. Because Beth has a difficult place in the fabric of her family, which becomes apparent, for example, when she asks Jamie to finally “be a man”. After all, this is a role she can never take on, much to her own frustration in the eyes of her father.
Even if we can’t stand Jamie Dutton and understand Beth’s motivations for her constant torment: Does that justify her cruelty? No. Having experienced suffering does not automatically give you permission to dish it out yourself. This is where Beth’s strength becomes her weakness. And we have to hold up a mirror to ourselves and ask whether we are allowed to admire a character who often goes too far. Can you root for someone like that, even in a fictional narrative like Yellowstone?
Game of Thrones’ Cersei Lannister (Lena Headey) has recently been a similarly impressive series character, with no easy empathy answers. However, it is precisely this facet that makes Beth Dutton so complex, so realistic and so human. And in Yellowstone, we can only relish this fearless abyss called Beth Dutton and celebrate the dichotomy
