Two stars. Rated R, for profanity and disturbing content
By Derrick Bang
Watching two teenage sociopaths
chat their way up to a homicide isn’t my notion of a good time.
Writer/director Cory Finley
obviously feels otherwise, since that dynamic is the sole raison d’être for Thoroughbreds,
a thoroughly dull and unpleasant little study in girls behaving very badly.
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| Lily (Anya Taylor-Joy, background) feigns innocence, sweetness and light, but — as this film progresses — we begin to wonder if she's even more twisted than her sorta-kinda best friend Amanda (Olivia Cooke). |
Not that such a topic can’t
generate an absorbing or even fascinating storyline. But Finley hasn’t the
skill for such an exercise; his film lacks the darkly snarky impudence of Heathers, or the alluringly warped
fantasy elements of Heavenly Creatures,
or the hypnotic creepiness of Stoker.
All three are unsettling — and far more successful — studies of young women
dabbling in murder.
Thoroughbreds is Finley’s first effort at
writing or directing, and it shows. He stretches a 15-minute premise way beyond endurance — even at an
otherwise economical 92 minutes — and his relentless reliance on talking-heads
set-ups too frequently makes this feel like a boring stage play. Indeed, it
could have been such, except for Finley’s fondness for cinematographer Lyle
Vincent’s languorously long and sweeping tracking shots through the hallways
and stairwells of the opulent home wherein one of our protagonists resides.
The talking heads in question
belong to Amanda (Olivia Cooke) and Lily (Anya Taylor-Joy), two insufferably
spoiled white-bread bitches whose parents clearly have more money than God. As
introduced, Amanda is “troubled,” while Lily is the “noble spirit doing a good
deed” via tutoring lessons. But it’s not that simple, and appearances are
deceiving.
Actually, they aren’t. It’s
pretty obvious, from the start, that both of these girls are warped Bad News.
Amanda, at least, appears to have
an excuse. She’s clinically, emotionally barren: unable to experience joy,
sorrow or anything in between. She’s therefore brutally blunt and candid during
casual conversation, puncturing and stepping beyond all protective levels of
social decorum.
Cooke plays this role
persuasively, with an intense, owl-eyed stare and vocal delivery that lacks all
inflection. We’d think Amanda compromised by an excessively high drug regimen,
except that her perceptive gaze misses nothing, and her seemingly detached
observations are uncomfortably frank. But that shtick wears thin, as does her
black, dead-eyed stare; Finley overuses both.
Cooke may be remembered for her
winning turn in 2015’s under-appreciated Me and Earl and the Dying Girl; she’s also soon to star as Becky Sharp in the Amazon/ITV
miniseries adaptation of William Makepeace Thackeray’s Vanity Fair. One hopes she can put this current effort behind her
as quickly as possible.
