"Our children are dying, but yes, I can make you mashed potatoes." It is a line that typifies the strange world of Greek director Yorgos Lanthimos.
His films are clinically measured without an ounce of extra fat and feel like they sit somewhere on the autistic spectrum of film-making, if there was such a thing.
His previous outing, The Lobster, with its blunt and robotic dialogue, was as peculiar as it was amusing and The Killing of a Sacred Deer is tonally much the same, if perhaps a little more disturbing.
The Killing of a Sacred Deer is a seemingly emotionless film, detached and devoid of any warmth. You'd think it has little to offer, but its world of odd characters and absurd situations offer a rewarding mix of dark comedy and painful catharsis.
Steven (Colin Farrell), a renowned cardiovascular surgeon, and his wife Anna (Nicole Kidman), an ophthalmologist, are happily married with two children. When a patient dies on Steven's operating table he feels duty-bound to take the dead patient's son, Martin (Barry Keoghan), under his wing.
