I once heard someone describe Thoroughbreds as that one movie your gay friends have secretly
known about for years, ala Shortbus or
Death Becomes Her. The cinematic
debut of playwright Corey Finley, is a pitch-black comedy about life in a world
without empathy. It was touted in its promotion as the cross between Heathers and American Psycho we never knew we wanted, and they weren’t wrong. None
of the characters exhibit anything remotely resembling it, and one is literally
incapable of doing so. But in its setting of the wealthy suburbs of
Connecticut, with its blue blood and white collars, immaculate but empty
mansions, manicured lawns, and more money in one square mile than most of the
rest of the country, wildly detached from the riff raff, it’s no surprise that
our protagonists would immediately jump to homicide to solve what is essentially
a first world problem.
Our story follows two estranged friends reconnecting for the
first time in years: Amanda (Olivia Cooke), a teenage sociopath incapable of
feeling emotions, and Lily (Anya Taylor-Joy), a rich boarding student with a
high pedigree. Since their time apart, Lily has become a prim and proper debutante,
while Amanda has become a social outcast after doing something terrible to a
horse. At first, they’re estranged, but their bond is rekindled over their
mutual contempt for Lily’s callous stepfather (Paul Sparks). When he threatens
to cut her off his payroll and send her to military school, the two conspire to
murder him, enlisting an incompetent local dirtbag hustler (Anton Yelchin) to
do the deed.
The most outstanding thing about this movie is how it keeps
your fascination with something so relentlessly unrelatable. In fact, Finley
does such a good job of fully realizing the cold detachment of this setting and
these that the film becomes a bit too sociopathic for its own good. But one of
my philosophies of writing is that good characters don’t necessarily have to be
good people. Hell, some of my
favorite movies are all about horrible people doing horrible things. But
our leads are so thoroughly magnetic and synergistic, and the stepfather is
such an unpleasant bastard that you do buy it when they conclude that killing
him would be the best for everyone’s interest.
The performances are stellar on all fronts. Olivia Cooke
does an outstanding job of selling someone so emotionally dead as Amanda. She’s
eerily self-aware of her inability to feel anything resembling joy, sorrow,
anger, and certainly not regret or remorse (although she’s become proficiently
good at faking them to the point that she can even cry at will), it’s also
given her an inhuman ability for detecting bullshit and sharp wit that cuts
right to the bone. Anya Taylor-Joy’s Lily seems like the perfect prep girl at
first, but as her mask gradually slips, it’s revealed that she’s probably the
ugliest one of them all. This is also supposedly the final performance of Anton
Yelchin, who died in a freak accident at the age of 27, and whom the film is
dedicated to. His character is a complete 180 from the rest of the cast in many
cases: a skeezy, unkempt loser with delusions of grandeur who sells drugs to
kids, he’s a stark contrast to the privileged debutantes who hire him.
The comparisons to Heathers
and American Psycho are perfectly apt
in the writing aspect, but cinematically it’s also covered in the fingerprints
of The Shining, Heavenly Creatures, and The Killing of a Sacred Deer. There are a few moments where you can
really tell that the director comes from a theater background and that this was
originally a play since the movie is 90% characters having conversations in a
single location, but for a first-time filmmaker it’s particularly impressive.
Finley especially has a keen eye for editing and camera work. The gliding tracking
shots through the barren halls of Lily’s mansion are so Kubrickian in their
execution that you half expect to see those creepy twins around the corner at
any moment. The near constant muffled grinds of the stepfather’s rowing machine
are enough to drive anyone mad after a while. It’s surprisingly clean-cut for a
movie revolving around a poorly thought out murder, but the violence is all done
through suggestion. To borrow a quote from someone way more talented
than I’ll ever be, all a good thriller has to do is hand you a sheet of
sandpaper and shout encouragement as you vigorously massage your own undercarriage.
There are two moments in the movie where this is done brilliantly. The first is
when Amanda confesses to what she did to one of her mother’s prized horses, which
was hinted at the beginning of the film and described in graphic detail. The
description alone is what gets under your skin and leaves your imagination to
fill in the gaps. The second is a single, slow zoom in on a character sleeping
under the couch, but it’s what happens before, during and after that makes it
so chilling.
Bottom line, Thoroughbreds
is a darkly funny satire of privilege, empathy and the darkness laying behind
our everyday facades. While the humor might be too deadpan or dark for some
(this is pure black, no cream or sugar), its staginess does show through at
times, Corey Finley shows himself to be the most adept playwright turned film
director since Martin McDonagh. Catch this if you ever get the chance.
8/10, Matinee
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