Thoroughbreds Review
R: disturbing behavior, bloody images, language, sexual references, and some drug content
Focus Features, June Pictures, B Story
1 Hr and 30 Minutes
Writer & Dir: Cory Finley
Cast: Olivia Cooke, Anya Taylor-Joy, Anton Yelchin, Paul Sparks, Francie Swift
INTRO: We didn’t need a 2018 Heathers series made for television. All we need was “Thoroughbreds.”
Two upper-class teenage girls in suburban Connecticut rekindle their unlikely friendship after years of growing apart. Together, they hatch a plan to solve both of their problems-no matter what the cost.
I’m just going to throw this out there right now: if Cory Finley continues down this path as a filmmaker opposed to just being a playwright, I hope his next project is a Daria film adaptation. I just think he has the chops to both write and direct it. He perfectly nails down writing the personality of a sarcastic and deadpan character for that is all Amanda truly is. Amanda is practically Daria but just with ten times more sarcasm.
Amanda is an emotionless and very direct psycho who can analyze and pick up reads of every situation. Lily is a reserved but spoiled psycho who knows how to fake a front. Together they are practically two peas in a pod. What makes their friendship such a joy to invest in is the way how they’re written. Cooke & Taylor-Joy has a lot of onscreen chemistry where they bounce off each other very well.
Besides Finley being thoroughly passionate about his screenplay, his direction makes the film itself much stronger as a narrative. Transitioning from being a playwright to his directorial debut, Finley displays a lot of promise and an effective first impression. With this rooting off from being a stage play to a feature-length film, Finley doesn’t pull a Denzel Washington in “Fences” where he makes a movie that plays like a stage play. Finley puts in a lot of work into crafting his baby and making sure it is as visually enticing as his script is. Finley plays with his tracking shots and long takes to makes his narrative more entertaining to watch. His ominous one shots add an extra layer of ambient mystery to the story. He allows a number of his shots be open to interpretation.
Some actors get one terrible move after they die where their last performance was left on a sour note. Florence Henderson had “Fifty Shades of Black,” Jonathan Winters had “The Smurfs 2,” and poor Bill Paxton had “The Circle.” Yelchin got two good movies and amazing voice acting gig on an excellent TV series. Now with “Thoroughbreds” being his final posthumous performance, he delivers a great and long lasting final performance. You’ve never seen Yeltsin play as a drug-dealing sleazebag and that is precisely who he is in this. Yelchin has to be the only charismatic character in all of the madness where these two girls are both flat in expressiveness. When Cooke and Taylor-Joy interact with him, they bounce jokes off him really well that the results are often uproariously funny. One of the most hilarious moments is a scene where Amanda and Lily try to blackmail Tim to do their dirty work and they just continually test his patience.
Some of my favorite films to watch are the ones where we follow people who seem like a hero and then as the film progresses they turn into a monster. Amanda & Lily may come across off as weird at first, but once they rekindle their bond, they start to show their true psychopathic colors. By the third act, you see them turn into villains to the fullest extent, If anything, this could've been a supervillain origin story because that's how it is played out.
LAST STATEMENT
“Thoroughbreds” is one of those original films that you can’t predict what is going to happen. Honestly, there has no point had no idea where it was going to go. Dark, twisted, and hysterically witty, Finely’s first theatrical directorial project bursts him out of the gates and hopefully on a path to writing/directing more features — Even though the climatic conclusion might leave somewhat of a sour taste in your mouth,
Rating: 3.5/5 | 78%
Super Scene: “How’d you kill it?”
