This is the latest film from Yorgos Lanthimos (The Lobster) stars Colin Farrell and Nicole Kidman. But what have critics have been making of it?
The Guardian: **** “As in all his best work, Lanthimos is brilliant at summoning up a whole created world and immersing us in it.”
The Telegraph: ***** “For all its tics and quirks, Sacred Deer isn’t playing around. This is cinema that slinks around your subconscious like a hungry panther, sniffing out soft bits to nip.”
Empire: ***** “There’s a lot to get your teeth into here, from flawed and lying masculinity being called out to the nature of guilt and responsibility to the morality of instrumentalising human life — but, more than anything, The Killing Of A Sacred Deer is an unforgettably unnerving experience.”
Variety: “Farrell and Kidman are astonishingly gifted at playing the subtext of every scene.”
Hollywood Reporter: “The Greek director here further cements his position among the world’s most interesting contemporary filmmakers.”
The Independent: **** “Yorgos Lanthimos’s surrealistic revenge tragedy is all the more chilling because of its absurdist and macabre humour.”
Consequence of Sound: “While the quality of the film’s craft is up for little debate, though, it’s overall appeal and impact are far more polarizing.”
Evening Standard: **** “We’re in the middle of a golden age — sensitively shocking movies abound. And this tale of revenge — orchestrated by teen Martin (Barry Keoghan) against Dr Murphy’s family — is one of the year’s best.”
Vulture.com: “To see an unfettered nightmare like this from such an idiosyncratic director feels like a cruel treat, and a welcome stylistic stretch.”
The Daily Mail: *** “I wouldn’t go so far as to say that I liked The Killing Of A Sacred Deer, but I greatly admired it. Lanthimos is nothing if not a singular film-maker and the performances are uniformly excellent.”
Culture Whisper: *** ” Lanthimos’ film also suffers from a laughably overwrought score, and an ending that can only be described as a Woody Allen parody of Sophie’s Choice. But it’s the stylised babyishness that’s really eye-rolling, and it leaves The Killing of a Sacred Deer about as dangerous as a Wes Anderson film.”
The Times: *** ” I suppose that if you’re in the mood for a ruthless allegory about a man forced to choose between slaughtering one member of his family or seeing them all become paralysed and die, then Yorgos Lanthimos’s The Killing of a Sacred Deer hits the spot.”
The Sun: ***** “This is the darkest comedy you’ll see this year and will very much polarise the audience (think mother!-in-law) but from the second it starts cascading into lunacy, I found it absolutely brilliant and can’t wait to see it again.”
Irish Times: **** “As ever, writer-director Yorgos Lanthimos and regular co-writer Efthimis Filippou are trolling, well, all of us, with his uncomfortably banal approximations of human behaviour.”
The Killing of a Sacred Deer is out in cinemas now.