To get a feel for why a lot of people disbelieve movie critics, take a look at the quotes in the poster above. I know Heathers and American Psycho quite well and I also know wickedly funny and Thoroughbreds is none of the above. Oh, the trailer below is typical false advertising as well, implying a much more crackling movie.
Former besties Amanda (Olivia Cooke, she was Artemus in Ready Player One) and Lily (Anya Taylor-Joy, she was the final girl in Split) are reunited under odd circumstances when the latter is hired to tutor the former in the mansion Lily lives in with her mother and a-hole stepfather. It takes some time to get enough crumbs to start assembling the cookie of these girls' pasts, but we eventually learn that Amanda is an emotionless sociopath who killed her horse in a botched attempt of euthanization and Lily was expelled from her previous elite private school for plagiarism.
As they drift along in what the movie imagines to be artsy hip storytelling, the focus settles on Lily's desire to kill her a-hole stepdad who, other than being a pretentious self-centered jerk, doesn't seem to be in dire need of offing. He's not physically beating her mother or putting the creepy moves on his cherry bomb step-daughter. His capital crime seems to be using the rowing machine too often. Yes, the travails of upper-crust youth these days.
They attempt to contract out the hit to a small-time drug dealer (Anton Yelchin in his final performance; he died two weeks after the film wrapped), but stuff nonsense hijinks TWISTY ENDING yawn.
The original stage play intentions of writer-director Cory Finley's thin script come through despite the slick ivory cinematography of Lyle Vincent. There is nothing relatable about the leads despite OK performances. They're a pair of pampered teens with rich white people problems which aren't really problems. (That they don't even bother mixing in boy troubles or some obligatory teen lesbian hints really shows how empty things are.)
I don't know where the ludicrous idea entered the heads of the critics who gave Thoroughbreds an 86% RT score came from - probably next door to where It Follows 95% score came from - but perhaps they should be put down for being lame as well.
Score: 3/10. Skip it.
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