Terrifying descent into a surreal suburban hell

Cannes Film Festival The Killing of a Sacred Deer 109 minutes ★★★★★

Dir: Yorgos Lanthimos Starring: Colin Farrell, Nicole Kidman, Barry Keoghan, Raffey Cassidy, Sunny Suljic, Alicia Silverstone

Yorgos Lanthimos’s new film is probably the most divisive thing yet seen at Cannes this year, and one of the very best. It is a shattering suburban tale about a rich, happy family surreally slip-sliding into hell.

Steven Murphy (Colin Farrell) is a heart surgeon at a busy city hospital, and a loving husband to Anna (Nicole Kidman). He’s also a mentor to Martin (Barry Keoghan) – an odd teenager he invites for dinner. The boy accepts and befriends his children – which is all part of a nefarious plan.

Lanthimos (The Lobster) and his regular co-writer Efthymis Filippou stake out this terrain with such poise and nerve that summarising the plot would do the film a serious disservice. Suffice to say that Martin’s plans are terrifying in their sleek simplicity.

Steven’s growing acceptance of his family’s helplessness is electrifyingly played by Farrell, while Kidman’s pricklingly ambiguous performance recalls her career-best work in Jonathan Glazer’s Birth. Dublin-born Keoghan is petrifyingly opaque, while the Murphy children can turn from heartbreaking to scary on a hairpin.

This sounds wildly uncomfortable to watch, and it is. It’s also venomously funny. When absurdism feels this wrong, you know it’s being done right.