Thoroughbreds

‘Thoroughbreds’ Review: The First Best Film of 2017
‘Thoroughbreds’ Review: The First Best Film of 2017
‘Thoroughbreds’ Review: The First Best Film of 2017
When Olivia Cooke’s Amanda enters a lavish Connecticut home at the beginning of Thoroughbred, it’s immediately clear something is off. It’s not just the eerie pops and crackles of the film’s score, or the fact that the opening scene showed her taking a knife out of her bag after menacingly staring at a horse. It’s that her face is entirely drained of emotion. When scanning the smiley-faced family photos of her childhood best friend’s home, Amanda suddenly looks up, cocks her head, and shoots a freakishly phony smile into a mirror. She holds it for an uncomfortable beat, then, as if deciding that particular emotion didn’t fit her right, she reverts back to her blank expression. Amanda is a sociopathic bored suburban teen who tries on different emotions like clothes or a grand gesture of performance art. But little does she know, she’s not the only one with sinister tendencies.