Neighbor News
Movie Review - The Killing of a Sacred Deer
Arty look and fine, understated acting wasted in senseless drama
The Killing of a Sacred Deer * (out of 5) (R) ***REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS***
Generally, the most difficult films to review are the artsy offerings that resonate with some as profound and edgy, while causing others to stir in their seats from boredom and/or confusion. For yours truly, this one sailed wide right. At such times lingering insecurities cause me to wonder if I’m not smart or hip enough to appreciate the mastery I may have been privileged to preview. But I’ve sat through enough of these to trust my gut more. We’re calling this one as serving up pretention without payoff.
We meet a surgeon (Colin Farrell) with a wife (Nicole Kidman) and two children. He’s hanging around with Martin (Barry Keoghan), a sullen teenager, for some baffling reason. Nobody is ever happy in this bleak little tale. Everything is barren and underpopulated, from hospital corridors to homes and exterior scenes. Lots of drab gray. Everywhere. Eventually, we learn why the doc is trying so hard to be that nice to Martin, and why the kid remains so surly... if not worse.
Bad things start to happen to the doc and his family, but we never learn HOW these events manifest, and that’s a huge chunk to be missing from anything resembling a satisfying tale. It’s OK for us to be left speculating about something like the contents of the briefcase in Pulp Fiction, because it’s a marginal curiosity that doesn’t really matter to us. All we need to know is that the crooks on screen thought it was worth protecting. Alfred Hitchcock called that type of plot device a MacGuffin, and used it often and well. But whether and how Martin may be wreaking havoc on others drives the whole damned plot in this one. When the screenplay comes up empty on the film’s essence, that’s hard to forgive.
Find out what's happening in Clayton-Richmond Heightsfor free with the latest updates from Patch.
Watching events occur in the world’s least-busy hospital that should have been swarming with providers and patients left me wondering if the fortune they saved on extras, props and costumes couldn’t have been spent to get director/co-writer Yorgos Lanthimos some help? Maybe his vision meant leaving medical staff out of the backdrop, but there was plenty of room for script doctoring on the other side of the cameras. (11/10/17)