Filmed in eerie and sometimes fish-eyed perspectives that push subjects into the distance, or into the depths inside us, this modern day thriller is at times deadpan suburban drama, at others otherworldly psychological fable.
Colin Farrell, star of Lanthimos’ previous hit Lobster, here plays Steven, a heart surgeon with his life carefully structured, clinically empty. Nicole Kidman is his wife Anna. They have a teenage daughter, a younger son, live in an expansive, and expensive house, exquisite, perfectly tended. They are the vision of order. Praising her son’s long hair, Anna turns to her daughter. “You have lovely hair, too. We all have lovely hair.”
At work Steven cuts away at revoltingly realised hearts that pulse and squirm, their corporeal fleshiness standing in shocking contrast to the lugubrious corridors and polished dining tables that make up the meat, so to speak, of the film’s images. But after surgery Steven strips off his blood-stained gloves and discards them, back to tidiness, in a move that is mirrored in his stripping of Anna’s underwear at night, as she poses perfectly still on their bed in an act of marital roleplay they term “general anaesthetic”.
Sex, desire, craving (Steven, we learn, is an ex-alcoholic), all are overt in the opening by way of their lack - the film is shaped out of the negative space carved by their absence. Dialogue is colourless and flat. Colours are cold. The camera moves as smooth as a hearse. Steven and Anna’s life is controlled, staged, unnerving.
But into this order comes Martin, played in a standout performance by the young Barry Keoghan. Steven meets regularly with Martin in a diner, drives out with him in his car, buys him an expensive watch. Martin feels a bond, and a debt, to the teenage boy, although we are not immediately sure why. As the answer forms, Steven’s tidy life begins to unravel.
The film initially feels like a classic thriller, Martin ingratiating himself into a family in which he doesn’t belong, at first charming, then increasingly dangerous. But there is much more to it than this.
Lanthimos, with scriptwriter Efthymis Filippou, blends, crosses at will between, the real and surreal; Steven’s son and daughter begin to fall strangely ill, apparently due to a curse Martin is invoking. Or is the kid merely unhinged? Are there rational explanations? Are we within Steven’s disintegrating mind? That Lanthimos refuses to provide answers, plays all avenues at once, will no doubt confound and frustrate some, but I found it to be a powerful approach.
Our lives are filled with secrets, regrets, hidden horrors, that, like our bodily organs, beat and thrash beneath the surface. Steven has crafted an existence out of carefully excising the aspects that do not align, arranging his surface reality to mask what he cannot control - and Martin represents the dark forces rising up between the cracks to reclaim what they have been denied.
It is a disquieting, deeply unsettling tale. It looks incredible, rich folds in fabric, thick texture, Kubrick-esque corridors - emptily expressive artifice, and the wailing, screeching soundtrack is ominous, brooding, and jarring. Farrell and Kidman are powerhouses, and Keoghan is a creepy, malevolent, awkward, and unfathomable presence throughout.
Rather than look for literal meaning, it is best to feel your way through the themes. The Killing of a Sacred Deer speaks of sacrifice, yes, and revenge, but also guilt, loss, love, masculinity, not to mention our relationship with the subconscious.
It is dense, complex, yet surprisingly approachable; desolate yet invigorating. I appreciated it a great deal.
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