DIR: Yorgos Lanthimos • WRI: Yorgos Lanthimos, Efthymis Fillipou • PRO: Ed Guiney, Yorgos Lanthimos, Andrew Lowe • DOP: Thimios Bakatakis • DES: Jade Healy • Ed: Yorgos Mavropsaradis • CAST: Colin Farrell, Nicole Kidman, Barry Keoghan, Raffey Cassidy, Sunny Suljic, Alicia Silverstone
On first viewing of The Killing of a Sacred Deer, I thought I was going to have a panic attack. You never know what you will get when it comes to Yorgos Lanthimos. The director of The Lobster and Dogtooth exploits expectation - in the best possible way. A psychological horror about secrecy, guilt and consequences, this marks the director’s most accessible film to date.
Colin Farrell plays Dr Steven Murphy, a cardiologist who is married to another doctor, Anna (Nicole Kidman). They have two children, teenage Kim (Raffey Cassidy) and Bob (Sunny Suljic). Ostensibly a perfect family, but all is not what it seems. Steven is secretly meeting the son of a dead patient, 16-year-old Martin (Barry Keoghan). What happened to Martin’s father is left a mystery, which ensures every interaction between the pair is excruciatingly tense. Once Martin is introduced to Steven’s family, things take a sinister turn, one that will change their lives forever. There is no narrator to fill in the blanks. Lanthimos demands more of his viewer, with only a score cueing us to assume the worst.
While Lanthimos teams up with his regular cinematographer, Thimios Bakatakis, the visual style of this film is different to anything we have seen them produce before. Scenes open with a moving camera, pushing and pulling us through the characters’ lives. The use of Steadicam is very similar to The Shining, and the parallels do not stop there. One of the sound cues is reminiscent of the bloody elevator doors opening, and the son, Bob, bears remarkable likeness to Danny, the boy in Kubrick’s classic.
Joint-winner of Best Screenplay at the Cannes Film Festival, The Killing of a Sacred Deer is a powerhouse of performances, the star of the show is undoubtedly Barry Keoghan. He gives a haunting performance and his voice will hang in your ear long after the credits roll. Not for the faint-hearted, Sacred Deer is a good place to start for anyone unfamiliar with Lanthimos’ work, and will not disappoint disciples of the Greek Weird Wave.
The Killing of a Sacred Deer is available to stream online now.
