Showing posts with label Yorgos Lanthimos. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Yorgos Lanthimos. Show all posts

Monday, October 23, 2017

Movie Review: 'The Killing of a Sacred Deer' is unsettling, addicting

A24
The Killing of a Sacred Deer (2017, directed by Yorgos Lanthimos. Ireland/U.K., English, Color, 121 minutes) Leading "The Killing of a Sacred Deer" are Colin Farrell and Nicole Kidman as the well-off married doctors who live in a pristine house with two beautiful kids. The family's stringent aura is broken by a teenager named Martin (played by Barry Keoghan), a young man who wants revenge after his dad died on Farrell's watch a few years prior. Who's to blame for the death? It's not clear. No matter, Martin will start to manipulate and taunt the family until they're on the verge of killing each other.

In an about-face from his raucously dark "The Lobster", Yorgos Lanthimos delves deeply into our own ethical and moral standards with this unsettling psychodrama. It's a stray from the warped settings of "Dogtooth" and "The Lobster" with a more precise, normal sense of place... and that makes this movie that much scarier. Nothing is scarier than realizing evil lurks in a place that could be our own community.