The Killing of a Sacred Deer, Thor: Ragnarok

Barry Keoghan and Colin Farrell in The Killing of a Sacred Deer

Yorgos Lanthimos's The Killing of a Sacred Deer continues in the vein of his earlier films: faulty personal dynamics are explored, body dysmorphia is investigated and an air of disquietude pervades. Lanthimos is too austere and off-putting a film artist to be everyone's cup of tea, but his body of work is singular and thought provoking. This film has provoked an outpouring of wrath by critics and viewers. Tom Shone, a fine critic, has criticized the film as utterly failing as a date movie, but that depends who your date is. I will admit that the film is humorless and distended. It is not as successful as his previous one, The Lobster. Its intimations of Greek tragedy fall flat and its performances are not in the least ingratiating. 

However, Lanthimos' vision, an unsparing one, is well articulated and his grasp of cinematic technique exemplary. Lanthimos' protagonist, once again played by Colin Farrell with his charisma under protective custody, is trapped and lifeless at home. The interloper who pronounces a curse upon Farrell's family is not a realistic portrait of a revenge seeker, but an emanation of the guilt and dread Farrell's character feels and projects upon his family. Barry Keoghan's performance as the interloper has been criticized as being overly repellent, but that misses the point. His character is not meant to be a three dimensional creature, but a phantom or bogeyman, an uncanny personification of unconscious fears and desires. Keoghan's performance is creepy beyond belief and that is the point.

Nicole Kidman, Bill Camp and Farrell also give brave and unvarnished performances. Kidman these days seems to relish playing unsympathetic characters in dark movies. Her care with the stillness of her body in her unsettling sex scenes with Farrell is startlingly effective. Lanthimos subtly manipulates the camera in such domestic scenes, but also does not hesitate to reach for bravura effects. The overhead shot of a child collapsing at the bottom of an escalator, reminiscent of Hitchcock in Topaz, creates just the right tone of helplessness within a deterministic cosmos. The Killing of a Sacred Deer is not without its faults, but, on the whole, represents another richly cinematic offering from Mr. Lanthimos.

A deterministic cosmos in The Killing of a Sacred Deer

I don't seek out comic book movies, but found Taika Waititi's Thor: Ragnorak to be an unexpectedly pleasant surprise. The humor displayed by Mr. Waititi in What We Do in the Shadows is fully evident here, as is a light directorial touch and spritely pacing. As Thor, Chris Hemsworth is a chunk of marble, but talented thesps such as Tom Hiddleston, Cate Blanchett, Jeff Goldblum, Anthony Hopkins, Mark Ruffalo and Benedict Cumberbatch are on hand to enliven the proceedings. A star making turn by Tessa Thomson makes me hope she will soon have her own vehicles. A frothy and fun flick. (3/23/18)