Farrell’s eerie fable is deeply creepy . . .
The Killing Of A Sacred Deer (15) Verdict: Truly chilling ★★★✩✩
Here’s a film that isn’t just unsettling to watch, but was deeply upsetting to act in.
Colin Farrell, playing a heart surgeon whose life falls apart at the hands of an eerily calculating teenager (Barry Keoghan), has admitted that by the time filming came to an end, he felt properly depressed.
The director and co-writer is Yorgos Lanthimos, whose last film, 2015’s The Lobster, was an enjoyable absurdist tale that ran out of ideas. Almost the opposite applies here. At first it seems tiresomely opaque, but gradually it exerts a chilling grip.
A lavishly- bearded Farrell plays steven, who seems contentedly married to Anna (Nicole Kidman), with whom he enjoys a decidedly kinky sex life.
They have two much-loved children. But for some reason, unexplained until well into the film, he is in thrall to a strange youth, Martin (Keoghan).
Is it something sexual? Gradually, the reason for their odd relationship becomes appallingly clear, and by the end, with Martin wielding positively supernatural powers, steven has been forced to make a decision that should never confront any parent.
Lanthimos has cleverly mined the storytelling traditions of his native Greece, for this is an adaptation of one of the legends of King Agamemnon, who accidentally killed a sacred deer and had to carry out an unspeakable sacrifice by way of atonement.
The director gives full vent to his usual mannerisms; for example, his characters speak almost robotically, which is deliberately at odds with the emotional nightmare into which steven and his family are plunged.
I wouldn’t go so far as to say that I liked The Killing Of A sacred Deer, but I greatly admired it. Lanthimos is nothing if not a singular filmmaker and the performances are uniformly excellent.
Keoghan wasn’t really able to showcase his talent as the civilian lad who came a cropper in Dunkirk earlier this year, but the young Irishman is unforgettably creepy here.