A review of the 2017 film “The Killing Of A Sacred Deer”

This is a very odd film in so many respects.

Above all, the storyline is so unusual: inspired by an ancient Greek tragedy (which is mentioned once very briefly), it is a psychological thriller in which lives are threatened and one is lost (the titular reference to an animal is a metaphor).

Although it is set in Cincinnati, the American family is played by an international cast: (a very hairy) Irish Colin Farrell as a surgeon and father, Australian Nicole Kidman as his wife. English Raffey Cassidy as his daughter and American Sunny Suljic as his son plus Irish Barry Keoghan in a stand-out role as the mysterious centre of the drama.

From the very opening, what we see is unsettling and unexplained and the narrative only moves very slowly in revealing meaning. Meanwhile our sense of unease is aggravated by the cinematography, with lots of tracking shots along corridors and wide-angle shots of characters in settings, and by the sound, with obscure classical music and frequent jarring noises.

The source of all this oddness is Greek director and co-writer Yorgos Lanthimos whose previous work was “The Lobster” and whose next work was “The Favourite”.

If you need conventional storytelling, this film is not for you. If you like something idiosyncratic and thought-provoking, this is recommended.


 




XHTML: You can use these tags: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <s> <strike> <strong>