THOROUGHBREDS B+
USA (92
mi) 2017 ‘Scope d: Cory Finley
Not feeling anything
doesn’t mean I’m a bad person, it just means that I have to try harder than
everyone else to be good.
—Amanda (Olivia Cooke)
In a morbid throwback to GASLIGHT (1944), updated and
revamped with a completely different outcome, this is actually one of the more
thoroughly enjoyable film experiences of the year, a subversive horror comedy,
a delight from start to finish, largely due to the heavy, overcontrolling style
of the director that extends cinematic suspense, creating an atmosphere of
dread and impending doom in every sequence, yet at the same time there’s
underlying humor in just how dark and twisted it can feel, becoming shockingly
clever throughout. Essentially a two-woman play written by the
writer/director, the story consists of exploring what lies underneath the
veneer of their darkly disturbing characters. Inspired by film noir
classics like Billy Wilder’s Double
Indemnity (1944) and Tay Garnett’s THE POSTMAN ALWAYS RINGS TWICE
(1946), but also dark indie classics like Michael Lehmann’s Heathers (1988)
and Peter Jackson’s Heavenly
Creatures (1994), old school cinema is given a fresh look with some new
faces, Olivia Cooke from Me
and Earl and the Dying Girl (2015) as Amanda and Anya Taylor-Joy as
Lily play two exceedingly bright suburban teenagers from Connecticut, but
troubled, both products of privilege and the super wealthy, raised in
state-of-the-art boarding schools, but tossed out for some heinous infraction
that remains under the radar, protecting their privacy, spoiled and pampered
beyond belief, used to getting anything they desire, where they’re actually
bored most of the time, too smart for their own good, unable to process normal
human behavior, instead they exist in an unfiltered state of egregious excess,
existing only for themselves, plotting and scheming to get whatever they want,
never allowing anyone or anything to stand in their way. Given this
fierce attitude of independence, though thoroughly dependent upon parental
financial support, they have to figure out where to draw the line between utter
unabashed freedoms, with no restrictions whatsoever, ignoring any and all moral
guidelines, and continuing to live in this excessively lavish lifestyle to
which they’ve become accustomed. The film is a comment on how the
rich have lost any sense of empathy, and how social media creates a
narcissistic moral vacuum, a disregard for consequences, creating a shallow
culture of disaffected teens who lack the capacity to distinguish between right
and wrong, but think only of themselves, too bored to care, where the world is
simply a cynical extension of their own pathetic lack of vision or
concern.
What’s immediately apparent is an obliquely dissonant
musical score from cellist Erik Friedlander along with a brilliant sound design
by Roland Vajs create jarring effects, heard even before the characters are
introduced, foreshadowing a tone of malevolence, yet what happens onscreen
couldn’t be more proper and polite, where the use of language is
exquisite. After a brief intro shows Amanda with a horse (details
withheld until much later in the film), she is then seen getting dropped off in
front of an immense mansion with an immaculate interior and landscaped grounds,
where expensive antiques and artistic busts line each wall, greeted by another
young girl her age, Lily, as the two are former friends that drifted apart
after the death of Lily’s father. The two girls are polar opposites,
as Amanda has had her share of issues, been in and out of psych hospitals,
evaluated by dozens of doctors, yet couldn’t care less what other people think,
acknowledging she’s truly different because she doesn’t really feel anything,
no joy, no disappointment, literally nothing, so she gets by pretending to show
concern, but it’s mostly acting techniques. Lily on the other hand
is the perfect little protected princess, yet totally conniving and
manipulating, overly concerned about her looks, dressing like a fashion model,
seemingly emotionally suppressed. Amanda is totally candid, where
there’s nothing holding her back, expressing exactly what she means to say,
where her choice of words couldn’t be more precise, remarking on Lily’s anxious
state of mind, stripping away all pretense, cutting right to the source,
disarming her with acute observations. While Amanda’s mother
apparently arranged for this little meeting, worried about her daughter after
the mysterious and gruesome death of her horse, paying for the privilege of the
companionship, though masking it under the pretense of tutoring sessions,
preparing her for the college preparatory SAT exams, Amanda sees through all
this in a matter of minutes and is much more interested in who Lily really is rather than who she
pretends to be. Lily is taken aback by Amanda’s forward nature, but
also curious about her abject amorality, describing in grisly detail exactly
how she took the life of her crippled horse, putting it out of its misery, but
in heinous fashion, feeling no regret or remorse for anything she’s ever done,
which Lily finds surprisingly authentic. In this way, the two girls
psychologically feel each other out, showing rare insight, rekindling old
flames while looking ahead.
With fluid camerawork from Lyle Vincent, exhibiting sweeping
Steadicam shots that rove through the empty rooms of a gargantuan mansion,
where sound suggestively sets the mood, what’s surprising is just how far under
the surface this film digs, each character constantly probing the other,
allowing viewers to become familiar with the discussed crimes, taking a
devilish turn when Lily inadvertently reveals her hateful feelings for her
stepfather, Mark (Paul Sparks), which Amanda picks up on right away, suggesting
there are ways to eliminate his influence on her life, and not get caught, if
she’s interested. Initially repelled at the thought, it quickly
gains traction in her imagination, utterly disgusted by his vain superiority,
his domineering contempt for her, and in particular, the earthshattering noise
he generates on his ergometer, with the entire house rumbling and moaning,
obsessed with exercising on a rowing machine at all hours of the day and night,
which she feels is done with the malicious intent to drive her crazy, where
despite the gargantuan size of the estate, it has the claustrophobic feel of
being closed in. But it’s only after he decides, no questions asked,
to send her to a boarding school for girls with behavioral disorders, as if to
punish and humiliate her, having been expelled from her previous school for
plagiarism, that she considers Amanda’s idea. While Amanda seems
like the perfect choice, free of guilt, but a pending animal cruelty trial
makes her a likely suspect. Instead they attempt to blackmail a
local drug dealer, Tim (Anton Yelchin), pathetic and over-ambitious, though
they’re way out of his league, leaving him exasperated and intimidated by how
easily they cornered him. No, if they want the job done, they’ll
have to do it themselves, unraveling in the most unexpected
fashion. The sheer cold and calculating process is impressive, where
Amanda tells Lily at one point, “You cannot hesitate. The only thing
worse than being incompetent, or being unkind, or being evil, is being indecisive.” Staring
fear right in the face, these are not the most sympathetic young girls, yet the
sinister nature of their toxic methods becomes hilariously cold-blooded, where
their monstrously evil behavior is so dispassionately over the top, parodying
slasher films, as it apparently doesn’t take much to set them off into
murderous plots of bloodthirsty revenge, perfectly covering their tracks like
Leopold and Loeb in Hitchcock’s ROPE (1948), but unlike the meticulous
superiority in the minds of Hitchcock’s killers, these girls simply see
themselves as entitled (with the police never suspecting Barbie dolls or
Stepford wives, as their perfectly pampered lives don’t fit the profile), where
the lavishness of their lifestyle is not lost on them, as the world simply
belongs to them. Everyone else is just a secondary character living
in it.
Note
The film is also notable for being the last performance of
actor Anton Yelchin, the Russian-accented Chekov in Star Trek (2009)
who died in a freak accident just 14 days after shooting on this film
ended.
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