The Killing of a Sacred Deer (Yorgos Lanthimos)

The Killing of a Sacred Deer

It’s Friday; I saw Barbie in a member’s bar with two other men. Friends, but clearly, men. I am wearing a watch. I make a point of it. I don’t tell them what I did before buying this watch, sending pictures of it to women I know online seeking approval, women I know I stress. The clincher was an ‘Auntie’ who assured me there is something ‘adult’ about men with watches. My friend has a smartwatch, I didn’t mention I have an smart watch too, but without a smartphone, I had a bit of a fit as I could not get it to link with my tablet or laptop and threw it in a sulky corner. I just take my watch off and insist they feel the weight. I insinuate the steps on his watch are set to ‘fragile male ego’ mode as it seems to be cunting his sips of beer…moving further away from my failure to use a smartwatch. The third man at the table uses his phone to tell the time. But what’s important is my watch, it’s essential. I feel important. It’s heavy. Nd makes me a grown-up in control. And not frag…sorry, we met; his watch is not set to the fragile male ego. It’s delicate. It’s a light watch, which is why it does this.

Steven Murphy is not a delicate man; he is a surgeon and knows what will last. From the outset, Colin Farrell plays him as a detached clinician who is also clinical in his emotions, his motion, and even his libido; although never quite neurotic, he is mirrored in Nicole Kidman’s Anna, who is not so much pliant but similarly focussed and exacting in her manner.

The film does a beautiful job of being an onion. It reveals through incidents and moments what sort of life they are leading. The act feels at times that the studio wanted to make another film in the ‘Hereditary’ vein and hired Ray Cooney and Raymond Carver to get the job done; having cashed the cheque, they both got on furiously well for the first half o the film, and then some imagines slur or comment on the proms, or a watch. They had a massive fight before getting kicked out of the pub to finish writing it while bickering with each other at the A and E.

Yet they do all this without missing a beat regarding family, loss, shame, grief, society, and class—denial of accountability and the tragedy of legacy.

Every element has been explored before; teenage daughters are fascinated with threats, young boys feel self-conscious and shouty fathers, while crystalline mothers try to seek a way to solve their problems. But it’s not her problem. It’s his. Colin Farrels, diminishing control after a life of one, is played intimately and intriguing enough that you don’t leave the screen. As Anna becomes more and more to the fore, it feels like an ensemble. 

It’s a low-fi thriller with supernatural undertones, but ultimately a terse and tense story that deserves your attention. It is not shocking without gore and emtoionally strong. Seeing something like Barbie helped.

As the calm before the storm. 

Oh, and my heavy watch. I didn’t wear it today, but I reminded my 15-year-old Nokia, which is not a smartphone, to buy mozzarella for Dad.

Because of priorities, it’s a Sunday; if I forgot, the shop would be shut. What phone does my friend have?

Fuck off!