The Killing of a Sacred Deer- Movie Review: An Amazingly Unsettling Piece of Cinema
About the movie: The killing of a Sacred Deer is an amazingly crafted art with some disturbing characters, screenplay, music and story. The movie is directed by Yorgos Lanthimos. Written by Yorgos Lanthimos and Efthymis Filippou. The movie stars Colin Farrell, Barry Keoghan, Nicole Kidman, Raffey Cassidy and Sunny Suljic in the lead roles.
The Killing Of a Sacred Deer is an R rated film about Dr. Steven Murphy (played by Colin Farrell). He is a renowned cardiovascular surgeon who live in a spotless house with his wife and two children. You will then meet Martin, played by Barry Keoghan, a fatherless teen who keeps on lingering around Dr. Steven and insinuate himself into the doctors life in gradually unsettling ways. Soon, the full scope of martins intent become menacingly clear as he confronts Steven with a forgotten past which will change the life of Steven for the worse.
The movie earned its R rating rightfully. There are a lot of disturbing violent scenes, almost all involving little kids and a has some nudity and sexual contents. So i definitely wouldn't recommend this movie for kids.
My Review: The Killing Of a Sacred Deer is easily one of the most unsettling and well executed piece of cinema i have seen in a long time. It is easily on my top 10 movie list. The very first shot of the movie is a closeup on a beating heart being operated on with a very unsettling eerie music. From that shot alone, we will get the overall tone of the movie. The movie managed to keep the unsettling and suspenseful nature of the movie fro the first shot until the very last second of the movie with its amazing cinematography, disturbing characters and very unsettling music throughout the movie.
The character of the doctor played by Colin Farrell is the main focus of the story. He is shown as a well mannered man living a seemingly perfect life in a nice neighborhood. But we will later realize that it is just the portrayal he puts up in front of society. There are many comments about his hands being clean and nice by different characters int he movie. But the very first shot of him is his hands covered in dirty, bloody surgery gloves, and he removing the gloves to reveal his clean and nice hands. There are more symbolism and hidden messages throughout the movie which i really liked.
All the characters int he movie is very robotic in nature and they seems very normal and lively from the outside. But when you come near and have a conversation, they are every emotionless and says things that a normal person will never say in front of a stranger or to our son. This adds to the creepy and unsettling nature of the movie.
Colon Farrell as usual did an amazing performance int he movie. All the actors did an amazing job portraying an emotionless but very robotic and creepy dialogues.
Positives: Cinematography amazing in the movie,. The movie is shot in a way that you will feel like not watching a movie, but always creeping in on this family. It has a third person feel to it, that you are an outsider who is closely watching this family from a distance. All the actors did a fantastic job. The music, being unsettling and disturbing, added to the suspense of the movie and kept our interest at peak at all time.
Negative: This is not actually a negative, but the movie is not straight forward. So it might be a little difficult for everyone to understand what is happening. The director of the movie said in an interview that he necessarily don't care much about realism in is movies. There are some unrealistic elements which are not explained in the movie. But it does not affect the move at all.
Over all The Killing Of a Sacred Deer is a well crafted art movie. If you enjoyed the previous movie of the director with the same actor, The Lobster, you will definitely enjoy this movie.
My Rating: 4/5
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