One of the most pretentious films I can remember seeing in a long while, THE KILLING OF A SACRED DEER tries to be a family-centred psycho thriller but instead turns out to be a long-winded and interminable bore. The film stars Colin Farrell and Nicole Kidman as a married couple whose lives are ruined when a strange and obnoxious boy comes into their lives and makes them a deathly ultimatum. The plot's okay in itself, but not when things are dragged out to this interminably slow length. The worst thing about the movie by far is the direction, from a Greek chap who couldn't direct traffic, let alone a proper movie. Every single scene is distracted by his stupid camera tricks, with slow zooms in and out being particular favourites. The film is icy, cold, and has no heart at all, and at times there's blaring noise on the soundtrack that just annoys you. Farrell and Kidman do nothing with their underwritten parts while Barry Keoghan is no more than one-dimensional as the supposed antagonist. It's the kind of awful viewing experience that never seems to end.

Surgeon Steven Murphy (Colin Farrell) and wife Anna (Nicole Kidman) have teen daughter Kim and young son Bob. He is befriended by Martin (Barry Keoghan) who is the son of his dead patient. Martin insinuates himself into Steven's family and Kim falls for him. Martin reveals his threatening predictions with a devastating solution.

After his interesting weird The Lobster, Greek filmmaker Yorgos Lanthimos creates another oddity. His insistence on the mannered monotone dialogue delivery has a hypnotic effect that puts me to sleep. I had to rewind to get back into the flow. Keoghan's dead-eye serial killer performance is too obvious. I can't believe that Steven would bring him into his home. While I appreciate a lot of the outsider oddity flavor, I cannot take any reality from any of the characters or situation. The first thought I have as Steven is that the boy poisoned my family. At a certain point, these are no longer realistic people but rather artistic installations. There is some value in the artwork and I can imagine this story as a shocking psychological thriller in another person's hands.

"The Killing of a Sacred Deer" is the most recent work by Greek Oscar-nominated filmmaker Yorgos Lanthimos, writer and director here. It runs for pretty much exactly 2 hours and features Colin Farrell again, who gets to act next to Oscar winner Nicole Kidman here, and Alicia Silverstone is probably the third somewhat famous cast member. Apparently there is a strong connection to Greek mythology in here, but I don't know about that, so I'd rather elaborate on the film in general: This is the story of a family whose order gets destroyed when a teenager enters their lives and starts taking revenge for what the father has done to his father a while ago. Or we should say, he is rather witnessing the drastic events. The longer the film goes, the more you will understand that there won't be a logical or medical solution and explanation offered to the audience eventually. Tragedy is inevitable and occasional ideas that the husband or wife will take the suicide route to solve the issue quickly disappeared from my mind again. Sure not everything here felt really realistic, but most of it did I guess and it was a tense thriller, a good watch from start to finish that never drags and for a movie with this runtime, it is quite a success I'm sure.

Maybe my least favorite moment was the scene in which the daughter wants to sacrifice herself for the well-being of everybody else. But one of my most favorite moments was how she collapsed while singing. I also think that the relationships between children and parents are very special here. It is interesting to see that father and daughter as well as mother and son have clearly stronger bonds and there is an excessive deal of violence, emotional and physical, involved for the other parent-child directions. Lanthimos is not scared of including graphic sexual references here, mostly about handjobs and female periods. The latter and its constant inclusion early on made me wonder if there is something very wrong in the family too before the boy gets in charge. There seems to be a lot going on under the surface I'd say and the sterile, almost robot-like, behavior of the family members feels very bizarre when they are talking in the most calm and reserved manner about all kinds of contents that deserve all kinds of emotions attached to them.

All in all, a pretty good film and I can see why it got so much awards attention. I cannot really see "The Shining" references, but Lanthimos' style is easy to identify (also in terms of all the sounds you hear while watching the tragedy on so many occasions) and it's another success for him, quality-wise certainly not worse than "The Lobster". I recommend seeing it to everybody who loves psychological (family) thriller films. The very last scene at the restaurant was pretty telling too. The girl could walk again, the mother could still walk, but the cost for their health was gigantic. Speaking about Kidman's character, I liked how they constantly made us wonder with certain situations if she was about to be paralyzed too and fall to the ground the very next moment. But it is not required to happen for the film and story to succeed. The bait is definitely enough. It's not a truly great film and I don't see much potential for it to be included as one of the best 10 (let alone 5) best films of the year and it probably won't end up underseen or underrated, but this should not take away anything from your intention to see it. A definite thumbs-up for me. Don't miss out.