Tag: Anya Taylor-Joy

Thoroughbreds

Olivia Cooke and Anya Taylor-Joy are remarkable in Cory Finley’s darkly funny, opulent and dryly smart film destined to become a cult classic

thoroughbreds poster“It means I just have to try a little harder to be good.” That’s Amanda in an early line in Thoroughbreds plainly explaining her mental affliction to her old friend Lily. Amanda is without feeling and emotion, though she’s not quite a “sociopath.” She blankly stares into a mirror, tilts her head and flashes a smile. She can turn on a sunny demeanor in an instant, but there’s nothing behind that façade. And yet Lily is trying just as hard to be “good.” We’re all trying.

Cory Finley’s Thoroughbreds examines the effort we exert and the demeanors we put on to appear “normal.” It takes two teen girls, one who feels nothing and one who feels all too much, and examines what a friendship can do to these individuals.

Finley tells his character study via black sense of humor, opulent production design and stirring performances. Thoroughbreds feels like a modern indie take on “Heathers” in a way that makes it destined to become a cult hit. Continue reading “Thoroughbreds”

Split

James McAvoy gives a remarkable multi-personality performance in M. Night Shyamalan’s tightest horror/thriller movie in years.

In “Split,” James McAvoy embodies seven different personalities within one character, he develops new mannerisms and accents for each one of them, and he even flails wildly in a possessed, near perverse dance to a Madonna song. He’s acting a lot.

But in one scene of talking to his therapist, M. Night Shyamalan drills in tight on McAvoy’s calm face and the miniscule, wavering expression in his gaze. You look into his eyes and you see fear and a whole different person trying to get out.

In “Split,” Shyamalan’s horror premise of a man who suffers from experiencing multiple personalities, 23 in all, may be a gimmick, but McAvoy’s performance isn’t. There are a few costume changes, and he makes a big swing between accents, but McAvoy never has to spaz out, and Shyamalan never has to cut for McAvoy to suggest the fascinating, dangerous tug of war going on inside his head.

In fact the mad nature of McAvoy’s character’s disorder subsumes Shyamalan’s typical need to tantalize us with a big twist. Shyamalan has gone nuts with style and psychological parables, but “Split” brings the director back to fundamental genre roots of the horror/thriller. Continue reading “Split”