Hammerman Ikon

Hammerman Ikon Film Guide

The Killing of a Sacred Deer
2017
**
Director: Yorgos Lanthimos
Cast: Colin Farrell, Nicole Kidman, Barry Keoghan, Raffey Cassidy, Sunny Suljic, Alicia Silverstone, Bill Camp

A successful surgeon, who is happily married with two children, has become something of a father figure to a teenager ever since the boy's father died on the operating table. However, the boy's true intentions are far more sinister. Yorgos Lanthimos follows up The Lobster with another unusual mind-bender. Although the creepy story and Kubrickian camera work create a consistently unsettling atmosphere, the script (inspired by Iphigenia in Aulis by Euripide) is too conceptual, anachronistic, and preoccupied with symbolism to work as a drama about living and breathing human beings. I couldn't believe anything the characters said or did.