A failure of humanity

A failure of humanity

Reputed for his misanthropic stories, Yorgos Lanthimos takes it too far with The Killing Of A Sacred Deer

ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT
A failure of humanity
Colin Farrell in The Killing Of A Sacred Deer. Photos © Festival de Cannes

In The Killing Of A Sacred Deer, Colin Farrell and Nicole Kidman play parents -- both doctors -- ensnared by a nightmarish curse that threatens to undo their wealthy existence. The story is in the mould of a Greek tragedy, or a Cannes-worthy arthouse drama, or maybe it's just a self-conscious updating of pulpy material about gruesome death and voodoo hexes. The director is Yorgos Lanthimos, whose darkly satirical, unclassifiable Dogtooth and The Lobster slap humanism around in giggly delight. Here he's going down the path of psychological thriller, or karmic revenge, and while the tension is there, the whole thing feels like an empty, meaningless exercise.

Farrell and Kidman are excellent, however, playing Stephen and Anna Murphy, well-off doctors with two children. Enter their curse: an awkward, zit-encrusted teenager, Martin (Barry Keoghan, terrifying), who approaches Stephen at his hospital with mysterious intent. For some reason, Stephen plays nice by bringing the boy home and allowing his own daughter to hang out with him. Martin then pressures the doctor to visit his house in a working-class neighbourhood, where he lives with his half-crazy mother (Alicia Silverstone). The cagey, even bizarre relationship between Stephen and Martin is soon revealed to stem from a past incident -- one that I shouldn't explain -- and we gather that the teenage boy has forced himself into the life of the doctor and his family to exact some kind of revenge.

As often happens to the rich in movies, they're obliged to pay for the crime they've committed, either intentionally or not. Moral quandary and class vengeance get along swimmingly in post-austerity European arthouse cinema (Lanthimos is Greek, though his later films are international in their financing and casts). With inflexible malice, Stephen, Anna and their children are thrown into hellish physical and spiritual torture -- a torture that finds its precursor in Greek, Abrahamic and B-movie parables. It makes no difference in the end anyway.

The fear and suspense keep you guessing, hair-raisingly, and all performances are invested with conviction. But The Killing Of A Sacred Deer is so conscious of its own dark, twisted nature that it comes off like an experiment -- a derivative experiment in anti-humanism. Lanthimos finds an original sentiment, one that's at once weird and sad, in The Lobster, a hit despite its outlandish set-up (single humans are forced to find a mate or else they're turned into animals). In this latest film, the writer-director revels in the cold, misanthropic style of Stanley Kubrick and Michael Hanake, without the real misanthropy.

The Killing Of A Sacred Deer Starring Colin Farrell, Nicole Kidman, Barry Keoghan Directed by Yorgos Lanthimos

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