The Killing of a Sacred DeerA lie is like an infection--as it spreads, it becomes more virulent and destructive, spiraling out of control. The Killing of a Sacred Deer is a psychological thriller about a heart surgeon and recovering alcoholic named Steven Murphy (Colin Farrell), who frequently meets with a teenage boy named Martin (Barry Keoghan), who is the son of a patient who died on his operating table a few years earlier. After Steven invites Martin to visit his family--including his wife (also a doctor) named Anna (Nicole Kidman), his daughter, Kim (Raffey Cassidy), and young son, Bob (Sunny Suljic)--their relationship begins to turn awkward. Martin presents Steven with an ultimatum shortly thereafter that threatens everything he loves and holds dear.
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The Killing of a Sacred Deer is a bizarre, slightly surreal story--like The Lobster, the prior film by Yorgos Lanthimos--where natural behavior yields to strange mannerisms and scenarios that speak to broader implied themes. Identifying the motivations of these characters' behavior is best approached by examining the subtleties in the actors' delivery of lines and its cadence, and even in acute movements. Steven and his family are so perfect, it is almost unbearable. Both parents are doctors, and they speak and act with an clinical sterility and detachment, revealing their disingenuousness. Nobody behaves impolitely, but when Anna utters such an absurd phrase as "we all have lovely hair", it is clear just how artificial the social niceties really are. When Steven meets with Martin, it is as though it were a secret--by the bay away from anyone he knows. There's a deliberate stiffness to his dialogue, and inviting Martin to his home feels more like an obligation than an act of friendship. It is felt that Steven is guilty for something from the start; there is a tinge of resentment as he gifts Martin a watch, emphasizing that the metal strap was more expensive. It is inescapable that he is hiding something--not just from Martin, but his family and coworker; feelings of guilt and anxiety escalate within Steven, and provoke him into lying almost by compulsion, making everything he says seem untrustworthy. The asymmetrical relationship between Steven and Martin in The Killing of a Sacred Deer depicts Steven as a "father figure" to Martin, countered by Martin's invasive stalking of Steven. Although Martin is not much more than a child, he ingratiates himself into the Murphy family, romancing Kim and befriending Bob. When Martin comes to visit, he offers simple gifts--which he has the awkward habit of spoiling the surprise before they are opened--and chats about how he took up smoking (as if to impress Steven's kids by looking like a rebel). He invites Kim to take a walk with him, and shares vulnerable details about himself with her--like how he is afraid of trying to break up a fight between dogs--and listening to her sing by a tree in the park, all of which causes her to fall in love with him. As Martin slinks closer into Steven's insulated world, the man begins to push the boy away, beginning by standing him up at the diner where they usually meet. Martin's presence threatens Steven--an intruder that will infect his precise, measured existence, heightened by the fact that he is a reminder of the failures of his past.
Martin makes for an unusual kind of "antagonist"--someone who seems awkward and even shy, yet he finds himself in a position of power around which the whole Murphy family orbits. This is explored in the musical score--at times a cacophony comprised of blaring horns and rolling drums, representing the rapid decay of the Murphys' perfect lives. He is tolerated by the adults, despite his relative popularity with Kim and Bob, and his idiosyncratic manner of speech and presence in the Murphy household makes him resemble an Eddie Haskell with Aspergers. Yet his efforts to ingratiate himself into their family--combined with the ways that Steven comes to consider him an escalating threat--also makes him come across like a teenage Max Cady (from Cape Fear). Martin's increasing significance in Steven's life forces him to reevaluate his limitations, causing the doctor to break down and acknowledge that he is incapable of making an independent and meaningful choice when it comes to taking ownership of his actions. Even the climax of the film speaks to this, and Steven's "solution" is an absurd and blackly humorous display that recalls Michael Haneke's Funny Games. Despite how structured Steven's life is, when his family is stricken with some unidentifiable affliction--beginning with Bob's paralysis from the waist down and refusal to eat--he becomes increasingly unhinged, convinced that Martin is somehow responsible. The affliction occupies the last half of the film, and it consumes Steven and his family. Steven goes through all of the stages of grief as the bizarre malady progresses, discovering just how fragile his world is while being forced to acknowledge his inability to control it, or cope with his suffering. The Killing of a Sacred Deer is loosely adapted from the Greek play, "Iphigenia at Aulis" by Euripides, in which Agamemnon is forced to sacrifice one of his daughters to appease the gods and placate his troops as a result of a previous affront. Steven (and in time, the rest of his family) becomes convinced that in order for the suffering of the rest of the family to end, he must sacrifice one of them so the others may live. This inevitably leads to Bob, Kim, and even Anna going to extreme lengths to try to protect their own lives, turning into deceptive sycophants who literally crawl across the floor like slugs, kissing up to Steven at the cost of their integrity. This affliction strips away the veneer of banality which was so obvious from the start of the movie, and suggests that the more superficially considerate someone appears to be, that an even more selfish ego is concealed underneath. The Killing of a Sacred Deer is also a metaphor for the powerlessness and impotence that can take root in someone who has to survive a loved one dying of a terminal illness, where despite all of the bargaining and anger, there is simply nothing that can be done except for ultimately accepting the truth of it.
Recommended for: Fans of a chilling thriller about owning up to the consequences for your failures, and also the stages one must pass through when coming to terms with failure, powerlessness, and grief. The Killing of a Sacred Deer is an unsettling film that is often bleak, and explores the long-term ramifications for burying a lie (and the accompanying guilt) deep inside.
Martin makes for an unusual kind of "antagonist"--someone who seems awkward and even shy, yet he finds himself in a position of power around which the whole Murphy family orbits. This is explored in the musical score--at times a cacophony comprised of blaring horns and rolling drums, representing the rapid decay of the Murphys' perfect lives. He is tolerated by the adults, despite his relative popularity with Kim and Bob, and his idiosyncratic manner of speech and presence in the Murphy household makes him resemble an Eddie Haskell with Aspergers. Yet his efforts to ingratiate himself into their family--combined with the ways that Steven comes to consider him an escalating threat--also makes him come across like a teenage Max Cady (from Cape Fear). Martin's increasing significance in Steven's life forces him to reevaluate his limitations, causing the doctor to break down and acknowledge that he is incapable of making an independent and meaningful choice when it comes to taking ownership of his actions. Even the climax of the film speaks to this, and Steven's "solution" is an absurd and blackly humorous display that recalls Michael Haneke's Funny Games. Despite how structured Steven's life is, when his family is stricken with some unidentifiable affliction--beginning with Bob's paralysis from the waist down and refusal to eat--he becomes increasingly unhinged, convinced that Martin is somehow responsible. The affliction occupies the last half of the film, and it consumes Steven and his family. Steven goes through all of the stages of grief as the bizarre malady progresses, discovering just how fragile his world is while being forced to acknowledge his inability to control it, or cope with his suffering. The Killing of a Sacred Deer is loosely adapted from the Greek play, "Iphigenia at Aulis" by Euripides, in which Agamemnon is forced to sacrifice one of his daughters to appease the gods and placate his troops as a result of a previous affront. Steven (and in time, the rest of his family) becomes convinced that in order for the suffering of the rest of the family to end, he must sacrifice one of them so the others may live. This inevitably leads to Bob, Kim, and even Anna going to extreme lengths to try to protect their own lives, turning into deceptive sycophants who literally crawl across the floor like slugs, kissing up to Steven at the cost of their integrity. This affliction strips away the veneer of banality which was so obvious from the start of the movie, and suggests that the more superficially considerate someone appears to be, that an even more selfish ego is concealed underneath. The Killing of a Sacred Deer is also a metaphor for the powerlessness and impotence that can take root in someone who has to survive a loved one dying of a terminal illness, where despite all of the bargaining and anger, there is simply nothing that can be done except for ultimately accepting the truth of it.
Recommended for: Fans of a chilling thriller about owning up to the consequences for your failures, and also the stages one must pass through when coming to terms with failure, powerlessness, and grief. The Killing of a Sacred Deer is an unsettling film that is often bleak, and explores the long-term ramifications for burying a lie (and the accompanying guilt) deep inside.