There are few things worse than watching your children die. For Steven Murphy (Colin Farrell), the pain of their rapid decline is intensified by a double irony: he is a star cardiologist who can summon the finest care for his children, Bob, 12 (Sunny Suljic), and Kim, 14 (Raffey Cassidy); and, he comes to realize, he forged the chain of events leading to what could be a terrible conclusion.
The title of The Killing of a Sacred Deer, the latest collaboration between writer-director Yorgos Lanthimos and screenwriter Efthymis Filippou (The Lobster), references the ancient Greek myth of Iphigenia concerning the wrath of the goddess Artemis against Agamemnon over his careless infraction against a stern commandment. The film’s plot progresses through a series of clues that finally fit together like puzzle pieces.
Murphy has taken under wing an awkward 16-year-old, Martin (Barry Keoghan), buying him lunch and expensive gifts and playing mentor. When he invites the boy to his posh suburban residence, as immaculately kept as his hospital, Martin befriends Bob and Kim. Murphy’s wife Anna (Nicole Kidman) might be a bit nonplussed but then, she looks like a person who touches life with a set of tongs. Soon enough, things get creepy. Martin crosses boundaries, asks probing questions and pops up in places where he shouldn’t be.
Early on, The Killing of a Sacred Deer is preoccupied with the banality of conversation, the hollow tones of people who talk despite having nothing to say. Into the nauseating tedium comes an intruder, tightly wound Martin, a figure of mysterious power obsessed with vengeance. Bob and then Kim fall down suddenly, their legs numb for reasons no medical test can determine. Martin finally tells Murphy that this is payback for killing his father in a botched operation. The esteemed cardiologist had been drinking the morning of the surgery and his carelessness cost a life. Now he must pay with a life.
Lanthimos is a master of composition, using camera angles, camera motion and lighting to construct a world both sterile and askew. The musical score needles at Murphy with the unsettling insistence of an unseen insect—or the small voice of conscience. There is a whiff of social envy (Martin is lower middle-class), a nod at the web of complicity binding society together, a question over the distinction between what is good and what is just, and a gnawing sense of impenetrable mysteries hiding in the silent spaces between human events.
