Thoroughbreds (2018)
Directed by: Cory Finley
Premise: Two teenage girls (Anya
Taylor-Joy and Olivia Cooke) reconnect after drifting into different
social circles. They consider killing the stepfather of one of the
girls.
What Works: Thoroughbreds is a stylish and
darkly funny movie. The story unfolds primarily within the family home
of Lily, a well-to-do prep school student, played by Anya Taylor-Joy,
who has been expelled for academic dishonesty and is now stuck at home
with her disagreeable stepfather. Lily reconnects with Amanda, played by
Olivia Cooke. Although she’s never diagnosed, Amanda is probably a
psychopath. She can only imitate emotional reactions and manipulates
others into getting what she wants. Lily and Amanda begin as study
buddies but gradually share each other’s secrets and contemplate
killing Lily’s stepfather. Thoroughbreds is a film with complex
characters. In storytelling, characters are generally understood
through their wants and needs. Desire drives the characters to action
and drama comes out of their struggle to get what they want. The
characters of Thoroughbreds have superficial desires; what they
really want is unspoken and revealed underneath the things that they
say and do. What’s fascinating about this story is the way in which the
characters manipulate each other to get what they want while not
necessarily conscious of what that really is. The characters are also
morally ambiguous. No one in Thoroughbreds is totally good or
totally bad. Virtually everyone does things in the movie that are bad
but the filmmakers hold back on the villainy. That makes the
character’s choices much more excruciating. If the stepfather was an
abuser it would be quite easy to leap to the conclusion of killing him.
But because he’s just disagreeable the decision to kill him retains
its moral complexity. The filmmakers handle this heavy subject matter
very well and Thoroughbreds includes a great deal of humor.
It’s a bleak gallows humor, which is appropriate to the subject matter,
and it relieves some of the tension while also making otherwise
unlikable characters much more tolerable. Anya Taylor-Joy and Olivia
Cooke are terrific in their roles as Lily and Amanda and they have a
believable relationship. Also notable is Anton Yelchin, in one of his
final roles, as a local drug dealer.
What Doesn’t: Part of the premise of Thoroughbreds is that the two young women were friends years ago but drifted apart at some point during adolescence. Taylor-Joy and Cooke’s characters are so different that it is hard to imagine them ever being friends in the first place. The movie creates very specific circumstances through which they reconnect and that papers over the implausibility of their friendship. Thoroughbreds concludes abruptly. The ending sufficiently wraps up the story but it also runs through the final events very quickly and then leaps forward through time. Good stories generally transition the audience out of the movie. Thoroughbreds doesn’t quite give the audience enough time to process what has happened.
DVD extras: Deleted scenes and featurettes.
Bottom Line: Thoroughbreds is a darkly humorous story of murder and desire. It’s a smart film that’s also funny. But Thoroughbreds is also a crafty film that avoids resorting to obvious storytelling conventions and challenges the audience with unexpected twists.
Episode: #711 (August 12, 2018)