Are any of you out there having a bad day? Feeling like the world is out to get you? Need a movie to give you respite from the world and its evils? Then Thoroughbreds is NOT the movie for you. About as nihilistic of a movie that I have seen in years, Thoroughbreds oscillates between riveting and unwatchable, thankfully falling more often towards riveting, but it is NOT for the faint of heart.
Lily (Anya Taylor-Joy) and Amanda (Olivia Cooke) used to be best friends. One falling out here one shocking mistreatment of an animal there, and Amanda needs tutoring from Lily, who is getting ready for college applications. The two rekindle their friendship around their blase look at the world around them. Things then turn dark when Lily casually says she wants to kill her stepdad Mark (Paul Sparks), and Amanda takes Lily seriously, which forces Lily to do so as well.
See? An uplifting tale of friendship! I haven’t felt that uncomfortable in a theater in a long time. Director Cory Finley uses slow moving tracking shots through Lily’s gigantic Connecticut mansion to give you a Shining like feel of being followed. The discussions between Lily and Amanda build slowly but very effectively, thanks to Amanda’s personality disorder (she lacks feelings).However, their conversations are unlike normal people conversations, because Amanda forces Lily to drop the nice person charade. And these conversations….let’s just say uncomfortable would be the nice way to put it. There’s a post-dinner conversation between Lily, Amanda, and Mark that is only uncomfortable silences, shade throwing, and backhanded compliments. I’m squirming now just thinking about it. The score doesn’t help either; it is random drums that beat inconsistently like the hearts of the protagonists. That uneasy tension slowly transforms into dread, but in a really interesting way. Finley’s script makes you think that Lily is the normal girl surrounded by strange or cruel people with bad dispositions. However, the more we learn about everyone, we learn that Lily might be the worst one of them all, since she has that toxic mixture of entitlement and hate. That mixture consumes the Lily until you know a breaking point is probably coming, and kudos to the movie for committing to its callousness. Thoroughbreds will make you question humanity of you find yourself buying into the leads’ mindset, which, if you do, please seek some help…
Thoroughbreds boasts a very small cast, but luckily, their talent makes the story’s bleak subject matter at least interesting. Anya Taylor-Joy continues to grow with each new role I see her in. If she keeps picking interesting premises or movies with interesting characters, her talent will continue to grow. I eagerly await her next project. Olivia Cooke probably learned her creepiness on Bates Motel, and she’s got the deadpan teenage girl down pat. Paul Sparks has something like 6 lines, but he manages to make a great impression in little movements or a laser eyed dead stare. He is hateful but also understandable, as you learn more about him, a testament to Sparks’s efforts. Finally, the late Anton Yelchin gives probably his last performance onscreen in this movie, and his character is the dose of real world empathy the movie desperately needs. It is a solid sendoff for a great actor gone too soon.
I mercifully saw A Wrinkle in Time after I saw Thoroughbreds. That movie’s message is so uplifting it got me out of the funk Thoroughbreds put me in. Remember, that’s not a bad thing; that means the movie got to me in a way that it turned my heart at least a little bleaker than it was. Ok, there’s no way to sell this with metaphors, so I’m just gonna say if you like well acted interesting movies that aren’t always happy, then Thoroughbreds will be for you.