SECOND SCREEN
Yorgos Lanthimos is a Greek film-maker best known for making really weird movies, such as the 2015 comedy The Lobster. His follow-up, The Killing
Of A Sacred Deer (16) ★★, is not quite as bizarre but is certainly nastier, although it takes a little while to realise just how nasty.
That’s partly the fault of Colin Farrell, who has starred in both films and gives exactly the same deadpan, matterof-fact performance here, playing a successful cardiac surgeon. As a result, we’re expecting similar levels of comedy, while the reality – despite Nicole Kidman, in a strange sex scene in which she impersonates a beautiful woman under the effect of a general anaesthetic – is that what dark laughs there are, are few and far between.
Steven Murphy (Farrell) appears to have it all – successful career, beautiful wife (Kidman) and two happy children. So why is his relationship with Martin, an odd, surly 16-year-old, so unsettling? Is he really mentoring the over-persistent boy, as he claims, or is there a more sinister explanation?
Very soon, Steven is facing having to make the most appalling decision, though why is never explained.
Kidman is good and the distinctivelooking Barry Keoghan excellent as the unnerving Martin, but Farrell’s one-note performance seems the wrong one in a film that takes forever to reach its unedifying conclusion.
The Son Of Bigfoot (PG) ★★ is a children’s cartoon that has terrific animation but relies on a script that may not thrill accompanying parents, such as repeated use of the phrase ‘holy crap’ and slightly misfiring plot details.
It’s a shame because the underlying story – of a young teenager whose long-missing scientist father turns out to be Bigfoot – is a promisingly entertaining one, while the main subplot, linking big hair with power, couldn’t be more topical. Who could they have been thinking of ?