I simply did not know what to make of The Lobster. That's not something that happens to me very often. Usually, when I walk out of a movie and someone asks how it was, it's easy to say whether I liked it or disliked it. Not with this film. I was perplexed, but the way that it has lingered in my brain speaks volumes to its quality. At the time, I was amazed by the precision of the filmmaking. I was in awe of the world that had been created, and I loved its go-for-broke intensity and humor. But I was truly disarmed by its coldness, the alien feeling created by every single character. I hadn't seen a movie that felt so emotionless in my life. Ultimately, I settled on a more conventional analysis of The Lobster- it's a great film until it takes a nose dive in the second half. It's a boring critique, yet it still rings true. But after cringing my way through the sci-fi satire on a warm summer evening, I knew one thing for sure- Yorgos Lanthimos is a director who deserves our attention.
The Killing of a Sacred Deer is Lanthimos' follow-up to the film that nabbed him an Oscar nomination, and it is every bit as insane as its predecessor. In fact, this movie solidifies the fact that Lanthimos is an absolute madman, a director willing to go to great lengths to make the most gleefully disturbing film possible. With this absurd horror comedy (yes, comedy), Lanthimos confirms his icy formal prowess and his keen eye for preposterous social commentary. Once again, this won't be a film for everyone, and its brutality and profound weirdness know no limits. There is no such thing as "too far" for Lanthimos. The Killing of a Sacred Deer revels in the intensity of its situations and the cruelty of its characters, and the comparisons to Stanley Kubrick and Michael Haneke are more than apt. After struggling to get into Dogtooth (I admittedly never finished it) and harboring mixed feelings about The Lobster, this full-blown nightmare fest stands as my favorite work from Lanthimos thus far, a frightening and shockingly funny trip into the demented brain of a strangely brilliant director.
Dr. Steven Murphy (Colin Farrell) is a highly intelligent, successful cardiologist, and he holds a prestigious job at a good hospital. He owns a great home, maintains a steady relationship with his co-workers, and has a wonderful family. But there's something odd about one aspect of Steven's life- his relationship with Martin (Barry Keoghan), a young man for whom he serves as a mentor and a friend. As the story begins, the relationship between the two is odd but innocuous. Steven serves as the father figure that is absent from Martin's life, Martin shows admiration for the doctor's brilliance and his more masculine traits, and nobody gets hurt. Eventually, Steven introduces Martin to the rest of the family. His wife, Anna (Nicole Kidman), finds him to be a charming boy. But his daughter, Kim (Raffey Cassidy), really warms to Martin and strikes up a friendship with him.
But the relationship between Steven and Martin is not as it seems. The truth of the matter is that Martin's father had a surgery, a surgery that was performed by Steven and his co-worker, anesthesiologist Matthew (Bill Camp). Martin's father died during the operation, and the disturbed young man directly blames Steven for the mistake. As a kind of twisted revenge, Martin reveals that he has cursed the Murphy family. Steven's son, Bob (Sunny Suljic), is the first victim. He won't be able to walk, he won't want to eat, he'll bleed from his eyes, and then he'll die. This will happen to Kim and Anna too unless Steven kills one of the three first. Martin believes that this is only fair, and in the process, he tears the family's entire life apart. And it only gets crazier from here.
Yorgos Lanthimos is a provocateur. He belongs in a class with Nicolas Winding Refn and Darren Aronofsky (well, depending on his mood), where the goal is to confound and disturb the audience. At his core, Lanthimos is the arthouse equivalent of a deranged little kid, setting up traps and doing outlandish things just to see what kind of reaction he gets. The message of the film and the narrative are not nearly as important as ensuring that you walk away asking "What the hell did I just watch?" He has no interest in keeping you in your comfort zone. Lanthimos wants to make you squirm and wince- his thrives on that air of awkwardness that you feel so intensely when you see one of his films in a theater with a crowd. When any reasonable filmmaker would pull back and give the audience a break, Lanthimos keeps pushing. His films almost exist as a litmus test for just how far you're willing to go as an audience member.
I'm also convinced that he doesn't think of human beings in the traditional sense. There's a reason that nobody in a Lanthimos film sounds like an actual person- his films feel alien even when they're not set in a dystopian future (i.e., The Lobster). The Killing of a Sacred Deer takes place in what seems like a modern American city (it was filmed in Cincinnati), but you would struggle to find a single character in the film that resembles a person you'd meet on the street. From the very first interaction between Steven and Matthew, it's quickly established that, yes, we're watching a Yorgos Lanthimos film. The way that his characters operate is almost representative of a perfect vision of humanity- everybody is frank, straight-forward, and logical, with no pretensions of sarcasm or pesky emotion. His world is one where characters openly compare body hair, and where it's perfectly acceptable to tell a group of people at a party that your daughter has starting menstruating.
By making everyone sound like a monotone robot, Lanthimos is reducing complex characters to a kind of animal-like simplicity, where they're just creatures responding to the torture traps set up by his screenplay. It's unnerving, but if you're not looking to be unsettled, you probably shouldn't be watching a Lanthimos film. This fundamental approach can rub me the wrong way, and your enjoyment of Lanthimos' work will almost always depend on if you like certain buttons to be pushed. I'll be honest, part of the reason that I didn't care much for The Lobster involved the scene towards the end where Colin Farrell almost stabs his eyes out. It's an effective scene, but this is just a matter of personal preference. So if you're not a fan of torture and bizarre medical procedures, you'll probably get sick of this movie real quick. But for me, The Killing of a Sacred Deer hits the sweet spot, blending meticulously crafted aesthetics and seriously messed-up material in an ingenious manner.
Whether or not you like his work or not, there's no denying that Lanthimos is brilliant at matching the material in his scripts (always co-written by Efthymis Filippou) with a pristine visual look. The Killing of a Sacred Deer is no different, and it may just be his most formally terrific movie to date. To correspond with the hospital setting, this film is appropriately sterile, bathed in hard light and almost completely lacking in color. Lanthimos comes from the Kubrick school of wide angle lenses and smooth tracking shots, and he continues to move the camera in ways that make it feel like an active part of the narrative. Lanthimos seems obsessed with the idea of order and disorder within the frame, cleverly combining beautiful, almost perfect images and absurdly violent events.
It can often seem like the actors serve as mere props for Lanthimos' crazy vision, but the performances are so essential to the way this movie plays out that it's impossible to overstate their importance. Colin Farrell continues to "get" what Lanthimos is trying to do, and he gives Steven a kind of pathetic sadness that is both funny and frightening. Nicole Kidman is a newcomer to the Lanthimos-verse, but she does interesting work as a wife forced to deal with the consequences of her husband's actions. Raffey Cassidy and Sunny Suljic (a kid who looks like the re-incarnation of The Shining's Danny Lloyd, furthering the connection with Kubrick) are wonderful as well, but the real star here is Barry Keoghan. The Irish actor broke out this summer in Dunkirk, but he deserves a new level of popularity and stardom after his brilliant, fierce, and straight-up terrifying turn in this film. As a teenager with a massive God complex, Keoghan gives Martin a jittery, uncomfortable edge- and also a wicked sense of humor. "Get it, it's a metaphor!" is probably one of my favorite lines of the year.
As mentioned before, The Killing of a Sacred Deer, like everything that Lanthimos does, will most certainly not be for everyone. The uncompromising auteur has made another scary and sickly funny work of art, a thoroughly insane movie about robotic human beings doing horrible things and making increasingly awful choices. It's a slow road to get to the ultimate point, and this film is definitely 15 or 20 minutes too long. But by the time that a masked Colin Farrell was spinning around in his living room with a shotgun (I'm giving you this with no context here), The Killing of a Sacred Deer had me cackling and cowering in fear. It's a seriously disturbing movie, one that features a strange combination of nerve-shredding tension and the darkest, bleakest humor possible. It pushes boundaries, but it does so in a way that is hilariously satisfying.
THE FINAL GRADE: A- (8.1/10)
Images courtesy of A24
The Killing of a Sacred Deer is Lanthimos' follow-up to the film that nabbed him an Oscar nomination, and it is every bit as insane as its predecessor. In fact, this movie solidifies the fact that Lanthimos is an absolute madman, a director willing to go to great lengths to make the most gleefully disturbing film possible. With this absurd horror comedy (yes, comedy), Lanthimos confirms his icy formal prowess and his keen eye for preposterous social commentary. Once again, this won't be a film for everyone, and its brutality and profound weirdness know no limits. There is no such thing as "too far" for Lanthimos. The Killing of a Sacred Deer revels in the intensity of its situations and the cruelty of its characters, and the comparisons to Stanley Kubrick and Michael Haneke are more than apt. After struggling to get into Dogtooth (I admittedly never finished it) and harboring mixed feelings about The Lobster, this full-blown nightmare fest stands as my favorite work from Lanthimos thus far, a frightening and shockingly funny trip into the demented brain of a strangely brilliant director.
Dr. Steven Murphy (Colin Farrell) is a highly intelligent, successful cardiologist, and he holds a prestigious job at a good hospital. He owns a great home, maintains a steady relationship with his co-workers, and has a wonderful family. But there's something odd about one aspect of Steven's life- his relationship with Martin (Barry Keoghan), a young man for whom he serves as a mentor and a friend. As the story begins, the relationship between the two is odd but innocuous. Steven serves as the father figure that is absent from Martin's life, Martin shows admiration for the doctor's brilliance and his more masculine traits, and nobody gets hurt. Eventually, Steven introduces Martin to the rest of the family. His wife, Anna (Nicole Kidman), finds him to be a charming boy. But his daughter, Kim (Raffey Cassidy), really warms to Martin and strikes up a friendship with him.
But the relationship between Steven and Martin is not as it seems. The truth of the matter is that Martin's father had a surgery, a surgery that was performed by Steven and his co-worker, anesthesiologist Matthew (Bill Camp). Martin's father died during the operation, and the disturbed young man directly blames Steven for the mistake. As a kind of twisted revenge, Martin reveals that he has cursed the Murphy family. Steven's son, Bob (Sunny Suljic), is the first victim. He won't be able to walk, he won't want to eat, he'll bleed from his eyes, and then he'll die. This will happen to Kim and Anna too unless Steven kills one of the three first. Martin believes that this is only fair, and in the process, he tears the family's entire life apart. And it only gets crazier from here.
Yorgos Lanthimos is a provocateur. He belongs in a class with Nicolas Winding Refn and Darren Aronofsky (well, depending on his mood), where the goal is to confound and disturb the audience. At his core, Lanthimos is the arthouse equivalent of a deranged little kid, setting up traps and doing outlandish things just to see what kind of reaction he gets. The message of the film and the narrative are not nearly as important as ensuring that you walk away asking "What the hell did I just watch?" He has no interest in keeping you in your comfort zone. Lanthimos wants to make you squirm and wince- his thrives on that air of awkwardness that you feel so intensely when you see one of his films in a theater with a crowd. When any reasonable filmmaker would pull back and give the audience a break, Lanthimos keeps pushing. His films almost exist as a litmus test for just how far you're willing to go as an audience member.
I'm also convinced that he doesn't think of human beings in the traditional sense. There's a reason that nobody in a Lanthimos film sounds like an actual person- his films feel alien even when they're not set in a dystopian future (i.e., The Lobster). The Killing of a Sacred Deer takes place in what seems like a modern American city (it was filmed in Cincinnati), but you would struggle to find a single character in the film that resembles a person you'd meet on the street. From the very first interaction between Steven and Matthew, it's quickly established that, yes, we're watching a Yorgos Lanthimos film. The way that his characters operate is almost representative of a perfect vision of humanity- everybody is frank, straight-forward, and logical, with no pretensions of sarcasm or pesky emotion. His world is one where characters openly compare body hair, and where it's perfectly acceptable to tell a group of people at a party that your daughter has starting menstruating.
By making everyone sound like a monotone robot, Lanthimos is reducing complex characters to a kind of animal-like simplicity, where they're just creatures responding to the torture traps set up by his screenplay. It's unnerving, but if you're not looking to be unsettled, you probably shouldn't be watching a Lanthimos film. This fundamental approach can rub me the wrong way, and your enjoyment of Lanthimos' work will almost always depend on if you like certain buttons to be pushed. I'll be honest, part of the reason that I didn't care much for The Lobster involved the scene towards the end where Colin Farrell almost stabs his eyes out. It's an effective scene, but this is just a matter of personal preference. So if you're not a fan of torture and bizarre medical procedures, you'll probably get sick of this movie real quick. But for me, The Killing of a Sacred Deer hits the sweet spot, blending meticulously crafted aesthetics and seriously messed-up material in an ingenious manner.
Whether or not you like his work or not, there's no denying that Lanthimos is brilliant at matching the material in his scripts (always co-written by Efthymis Filippou) with a pristine visual look. The Killing of a Sacred Deer is no different, and it may just be his most formally terrific movie to date. To correspond with the hospital setting, this film is appropriately sterile, bathed in hard light and almost completely lacking in color. Lanthimos comes from the Kubrick school of wide angle lenses and smooth tracking shots, and he continues to move the camera in ways that make it feel like an active part of the narrative. Lanthimos seems obsessed with the idea of order and disorder within the frame, cleverly combining beautiful, almost perfect images and absurdly violent events.
It can often seem like the actors serve as mere props for Lanthimos' crazy vision, but the performances are so essential to the way this movie plays out that it's impossible to overstate their importance. Colin Farrell continues to "get" what Lanthimos is trying to do, and he gives Steven a kind of pathetic sadness that is both funny and frightening. Nicole Kidman is a newcomer to the Lanthimos-verse, but she does interesting work as a wife forced to deal with the consequences of her husband's actions. Raffey Cassidy and Sunny Suljic (a kid who looks like the re-incarnation of The Shining's Danny Lloyd, furthering the connection with Kubrick) are wonderful as well, but the real star here is Barry Keoghan. The Irish actor broke out this summer in Dunkirk, but he deserves a new level of popularity and stardom after his brilliant, fierce, and straight-up terrifying turn in this film. As a teenager with a massive God complex, Keoghan gives Martin a jittery, uncomfortable edge- and also a wicked sense of humor. "Get it, it's a metaphor!" is probably one of my favorite lines of the year.
As mentioned before, The Killing of a Sacred Deer, like everything that Lanthimos does, will most certainly not be for everyone. The uncompromising auteur has made another scary and sickly funny work of art, a thoroughly insane movie about robotic human beings doing horrible things and making increasingly awful choices. It's a slow road to get to the ultimate point, and this film is definitely 15 or 20 minutes too long. But by the time that a masked Colin Farrell was spinning around in his living room with a shotgun (I'm giving you this with no context here), The Killing of a Sacred Deer had me cackling and cowering in fear. It's a seriously disturbing movie, one that features a strange combination of nerve-shredding tension and the darkest, bleakest humor possible. It pushes boundaries, but it does so in a way that is hilariously satisfying.
THE FINAL GRADE: A- (8.1/10)
Images courtesy of A24
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