The Killing of a Sacred Deer

For the first hour, I couldn't tell whether or not The Killing of a Sacred Deer was supposed to be a comedy. Its stilted, robotically awkward dialogue and performances, juxtaposed against the intimate and perverse details of its grim story felt like the perfect recipe for a series of eccentric, twisted gags. After all, writer-director Yargos Lanthimos previously brought us The Lobster, which was darkly funny in its own way.

But it becomes clear as the film reaches its halfway mark, despite the awkward socializing amongst the characters, that Sacred Deer has no intent of being seen as funny. As tensions rise and blood boils, the stiff comedy begins to fade away, as though the anger and tension felt by our characters makes them less like Sheldon Cooper and more like real people. Unfortunately, this is also where the film starts to lose its grip on crafting a story that is worthwhile.

It's really just a revenge tale, when you get down to it: Colin Farrell’s married father and doctor Steven finds out that a young boy, Martin, whom he has been mentoring, has somehow cursed his wife and two children to a slow, painful, and unpleasant death. Martin (Barry Keoghan) assures Steven that there is nothing he can do to stop their fate, aside from choosing one of the three members of his family as a sacrifice. Naturally, Steven doesn't believe him, and attempts to find other ways to stop the unstoppable. The events that ensue are increasingly tense and unsettling, but frustratingly seem to lack a sense of direction or empathy.

All actors put forth A+ effort in bringing a mechanical shallowness to their intentionally flimsy personas. Farrell and onscreen wife Nicole Kidman explore their sexuality with one another in possibly the most uncomfortable way I've seen put to film.

Sadly, that seems to be about the only driving force that makes the story tick; that is, making the viewer uncomfortable--and believe me, it gets very bizarre and very unnerving by the finale. None of the characters are adequate for attaching one's self to. Nothing is really accomplished or learned during the middle 50 percent of the film. In the second and third acts, the story lapses into redundancy as its protagonist tries and fails over and over to outwit Martin's wicked promise, and for all the film's unusually hopeless despair, its ending is somehow strangely predictable.

The cinematography feels sharp and deliberately rendered, although the camera makes itself a bit too obvious during some movements. Set design effectively paints the bleak, overly-formalized world in which these characters live. But these are simply enticing veneers over a hollow and unrewarding story.

I suppose some might be fascinated by Sacred Deer’s determination to slowly burn its way toward a gruesomely grim end--and even I was, for awhile--but the resolution feels simultaneously all too bleak and all too obvious to make the two hours of Steven's failed escapes worth the effort of sitting through them. Lanthimos would have been better off maintaining the stoic humor of the early third to a create a more bizarre and less plodding tragedy.

https://youtu.be/GZIuIl-9P9s&w=585