Review: Thoroughbreds

Image courtesy of Focus Features.

Cory Finley's "Thoroughbreds" benefits from some moments of sardonic humor and solid performances by its two leads, but the film is an otherwise frosty faux provocation that never figures out its raison d'etre. The picture reminds me of the work of director Yorgos Lanthimos, whose debut, "Dogtooth," was an unsettling, absurd shocker that I really liked, but whose latest film, "The Killing of a Sacred Deer," was a picture that was clearly trying too hard to be disturbing in a deadpan manner. "Thoroughbreds" belongs in the same category as that film.

The film is at its strongest during the moments when its two leads - Lily (Anya Taylor Joy) and Amanda (Olivia Cooke - are navigating the terms of their uneasy, fraught friendship. Lily is a rich girl, whose Connecticut lawn is covered in ridiculously large chess pieces and has a mother who often appears barely there and a creep of a stepfather (Paul Sparks). Although we learn little about Amanda, other than that she slaughtered a family horse and ended up being institutionalized for a spell, it is clear that she is middle class. As the film opens, Amanda is being tutored by Lily, who is struck by the fact that her friend is incapable of feeling or eliciting genuine emotion.

Amanda shows Lily how to summon tears without actually feeling anything, and this scene is the closest to anything involving human emotions in the film. The only other character in the picture who exhibits what could be describes as heart here is a dopey drug dealer (the late Anton Yelchin), whom the two girls attempt to rope into a plot to murder Lily's awful stepfather, who is verbally abusive toward his stepdaughter and wife.

The film is based on Finley's own play, and the picture is primarily confined to several locations - mostly Lily's house, giving it a stagey vibe. But the film's biggest drawback is that is never makes much of a case for existing. Much like "Killing of a Sacred Deer" or Michael Haneke's grim "Funny Games," Finley's film portrays the upper class as bored, sterile and casually cruel, but its laughs are too few to call it a satire. Its ending is also relatively anticlimactic.

Ultimately, this is a well polished and decently acted movie that doesn't appear to have much to say. It's not quite a comedy, somewhat of a thriller and a cultural critique that is missing, for lack of a better word, a thesis. I can admire its performances and Finley's sharp writing, but "Thoroughbreds" is otherwise lacking a purpose.