Review - The Killing of a Sacred Deer (2017)

Infamously uncompromising, Greek auteur Yorgos Lanthimos pushes back against critics who dared call his 2015 breakthrough 'The Lobster' clever, accessible, reasonably optimistic, or any other such anodyne terms. 'The Killing of a Sacred Deer,' his brutal cinematic rebuttal, ups the ante on violence, casual sadism and alienating over-stylization, while stripping away the surrealist humor and sympathetic characters that made his previous film so incongruously enjoyable.

Colin Farrell (Lanthimos’ new favorite punching bag) stars as Dr. Steven Murphy, an evidently successful heart surgeon who periodically sneaks away from his picture-perfect home life (wife, two kids, a massive house) to carry on a secret friendship with an emotionally unstable teenager, Martin (Barry Keoghan). The boy's father, it's revealed, was a patient of Steven's who died on the operating table due to a fatal lapse of judgment, a blunder the older man attempts to redress with expensive gifts, junk food and awkward chit-chat.

Things become even more uncomfortable when Martin cozies up to the doctor's family, particularly his 14-year old daughter, and demands even more of his time. When Steven tries to break off their arrangement, his son is inflicted with a mysterious terminal ailment, then his daughter. His wife will succumb too, and the only alternative to losing the lot of them, Martin informs him matter-of-factly, is for the doctor to repay his blood debt and proactively select and kill one of the three. Disbelief yields to increasingly desperate action, as Steven wrestles with the impossible choice, and the fate of his family.

Lanthimos presents his latest twisted parable in a style that is somehow even more stark and bloodless than that of his previous films. Every composition is painstakingly arranged and achingly symmetrical, and the stilted dialogue, whether threat or sexual overture, is delivered in zombified, near Bressonian deadpan. The sumptuously photographed set pieces, from the ultra-modern hospital where Steven works to his palatial suburban home, serve as little more than wallpaper, a glossy backdrop for the glazed over performances. It’s hard to imagine that the director expects, or wants viewers to feel anything for the characters onscreen.

Still, the film’s central predicament is compelling, even suspenseful for a while; one wonders what will become of the family, and by what godlike dominion a teenager can manipulate their lives and well-being. It becomes clear around the one-hour mark, however, that there will be no answers provided, no reasoning and no real point to redeem the violent disintegration that ensues. Instead, we have protracted scenes of suffering as the children’s bodies fail them, bewilderment as their father tries to keep his composure, and an ugly, chaotic final act that provides little closure, and nothing in the way of an explanation.

Lanthimos’ prior works are undeniably dark and disconcerting, but they offered viewers some reward for their toil. ‘Dogtooth’ was set in a distinctive, if creepy world, and featured a tastefully subtle political subtext, while ‘The Lobster’ advocated for true love while comically distorting its immense personal cost. ‘Sacred Deer,’ on the other hand, feels like a bald provocation, a challenge to a generation of filmgoers reared on Lars von Trier and Michael Haneke to see how much mannerist misery they can withstand. That subset will happily eat it up. The rest of us will be happy when it ends.