THOROUGHBREDS is a Dark Dramedy Featuring White Privilege

With a title like 'Thouroughbreds', I thought I was about to watch a film about horses...which BTW...I adore.  What I witnessed instead was a story about mean girls with too much money and white privilege covered in a dark dramedy thriller.

Written and directed by Cory Findley in his directorial debut, Thoroughbreds follows two upper-class teenage girls in suburban Connecticut who rekindle an unlikely friendship after years of growing apart. Together, they hatch a plan to solve both of their problems -- no matter what the cost.  Amanda (Olivia Cooke) and Lily (Anya Taylor-Joy) are not by any stretch of the imagination - besties.  However, as is often seen in millennial teenage girls, Amanda and Lily’s personalities slowly merge just enough for them hatch a plan to murder Lily’s stepfather with the help of a low-rent drug dealer who owns a gun.

In the age of #blacklivesmatter #metoo all I could think about is how privileged these all the characters were, yet tortured souls at the same time.  Both get away with murder, but they don't get away with piece of mind. Even the drug dealer/enterpreneur hysterically played by Anton Yelchin (in his final screen role) pays a price of never seeing his dreams of grandeur realized.  It's a shame that we will never get a chance to see how many more complex and turmoiled characters Yelchin would've had the chance to inhabit.

My favorite thing about Thoroughbreds is how the script was punctuated by a score composed by Erik Friedlander at times sounding very similar to a broken music box.  Absolutely brilliant!

Remembering Olivia Cooke from Me, Earl and the Dying Girl, this chick gives Lily a creepy confidence that sucks you into every scene.  Cooke's Lily is only complimented and enhanced by Anya Taylor-Joy as a demented version of debutante gone wrong.

The pacing of the film is a little challenging, but the message is loud and clear.  The evils of having too much money and too much privilege leads to having way too much time on your hands...and sometimes those hands get bloody, bruised  and burned in life.

Produced by B Story and Focus Features - Thoroughbreds hits theaters on March 9th

 

 

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Carla Renata

Fellow Movie Lovers...

Carla Renata aka The Curvy Film Critic is a graduate of Howard University and named one of 2018’s Underrepresented Critics of Color by the Los Angeles Times. Her reviews, articles and/or op-ed's have been featured at AAFCA.com, Ebony.com, NPR.org, her own site The Curvy Film Critic, ET Live! Maltin on Movies, Ebert.com, as well as Shadow and Act, EUR Web, FOX 11-LA and Variety. She has served as a moderator, host or gust film expert for MPTF’s Night Before the Oscars, Good Day LA, Fox 11-LA, Film Independent’s Spirit Awards backstage and hosted an evening of The Black Experience on Film for Turner Classic Movies sponsored by AAFCA.

Being a proud member of AAFCA (African American Film Critics Association), (OAFFC) The Online Association of Female Film Critics, (AWFJ) Alliance of Female Journalists, Tomato-meter approved critic on Rotten Tomatoes and a member of (CCA) Critics Choice Association.

The Curvy Critic with Carla Renata streams LIVE every Sunday 5pm PST via YouTube featuring reviews, news and interviews with talent in front and behind the camera.