The Killing of a Sacred Deer (2017)
This started off with an intriguing sense of “what the hell is going on. What happens is mostly mundane and normal and not immediately super weird like in The Lobster or Dogtooth, but with a clear undertone of something being off. It builds slowly and keeps the tension by withholding the payoff.
But then about halfway, a character punctures everything by revealing the whole premise. Of course some development is needed for the story to continue further, but the mystery and oddness was gone and I wast just waiting for the movie to go through the predictable motions till the end. The same sort of thing happened with The Lobster and Kinds of Kindness, where I think the unique style Lanthimos stops working for me once the mystery is gone. Dogtooth worked because it kept the mystery all the way through without ever giving the payoff.
And please, enough with the extreme ominous piano music!
Rating: 3