TIFF: The Greek Theatre of "Sacred Deer"

by Chris Feil
Is it better to have good friends or a large number of friends? It’s a question asked casually in Yorgos Lanthimos’s The Killing of a Sacred Deer that hosts some of its more loaded themes: social connection, the difference between acquiring and appreciating, the futile pursuit of a nuclear unit. As discussed between odd teenager Martin and adult Steven, played by Barry Keoghan and Colin Farrell, it carries even more terrifying subtext for their unsettling relationship.