Anya Taylor-Joy Olivia Cooke Anton Yelchin Paul Sparks Francie Swift
I wouldn’t call the movie “thoroughbred”, but
it is entertaining, and a good show for young writer/director Cory Finley. It will be criticized for being slow,
but I thought that pace worked well for contemplating the two teen misfits,
Lily (Taylor-Joy) and Amanda (Cooke), and building up the suspense. Amanda is particularly well drawn as a
psychopath-in-the-making, denying she ever has feelings, yet being expert in
the perception of others’.
Finley is clever in the way he introduces the
two main characters, illustrating their upper class upbringing, one presented
as prim and proper and the other as a much more interesting character who
surprises with every response. We
are given a heavy-handed tour multiple times of Lily’s house, a richly
furnished mansion, to show her upper-class status as well as draw us into the
allure of a proposition the two girls make to the local drug dealer, Tim
(engagingly played by the late Anton Yelchin in his last filmed movie). This tour and other scenes are enhanced
in the talented hands of cinematographer Lyle Vincent (A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night).
In the beginning, Lily is presented as a good
student who has been engaged to tutor Amanda, although this is made ambiguous
as to whether there are tutoring sessions or just “hanging out.” The girls are antagonistic to one
another, but something in the other also attracts them. (We find out later how this is not a
good thing.) Lily appears to be
prim and inhibited, and Amanda draws her out by surmising her underlying
negative feelings, making Lily uncomfortable, yet realizing that Amanda is
astute. Apparently, Amanda is onto
something in Lily’s relationship with her stepfather Mark (Sparks).
The girls do develop a bond, and engage Tim in
a devious plan. After rather
abusive negotiations and a tempting offer, Tim agrees to help them. Thereafter, nothing much occurs as
expected, at least by the girls.
Finley as the writer develops a clever way for all of this to play out,
but can be faulted for throwing in a red herring. Although he does an excellent job in showing how two people
can egg one another on, the twist at the end does not ring true/plausible.
The acting jobs of Taylor-Joy and especially
Cooke are spot-on. Seldom is an
actor asked to be so deadpan for her character as Cooke is, yet she pulls it
off with eloquent charm. Much of
the change in Taylor-Joy’s character is shown on the actress’ face and in her
eyes. We see it, but don’t want to
believe in what we see. Paul
Sparks is a talented actor, and shows the stepfather to be an a-hole, but he’s
more rude than evil. I think the
script should have called for him to more than just rude. As the film stands, it implies that the
girls are “born evil”, instead of responding to their upbringing.
A crime story with a bent different
from most.
