Stephen (Colin Farrell) is a surgeon whose life begins to fall apart when he decides to befriend the teenage son of a man who died on his operating table. 

Martin (Barry Keoghan) initially seems to be an awkward boy who misunderstands social boundaries but things become much more sinister when he takes ownership for the ills that have befallen Stephen’s family. Both of his children (Sunny Suljic and Raffey Cassidy) have been afflicted with a mysterious illness that has made them unable to walk and Martin claims that this will soon kill them both if Stephen does not choose to kill one of them first. 

Stephen and his wife Anna (Nicole Kidman) wrestle with this moral question for some time until their hands are forced into action. 

The Killing Of A Sacred Deer is essentially a philosophical thought experiment represented as a film. The mystery of how or what has inflicted this illness upon Stephen’s children is not only not answered, it is not even really considered as a plot point. We just have to accept that it is what is happening and is a mechanism to explore karma or justice in terms of Martin losing his father at the hands of Stephen’s surgical skills. 

The speech patterns of all the actors is also peculiar in that they all speak in a monotone emotionless matter of fact way. The purpose apparently is to force you to focus on the philosophical choice without being swayed emotionally. 

Whilst the title of the film is a reference to a Greek tragedy where Agamemnon is forced to sacrifice his daughter to Artemis to get winds for his fleet of ships or else his men will all die. But he decides to cheat the Gods and switch his daughter for a deer. 

I will admit to not being particularly gripped by this story mainly due to the sanitised and emotionless manner in which it is presented. The cast is an exceptional group of actors who are all giving purposely flat performances that did not engage me. Whilst the philosophical question seemed more of a Sophie’s Choice situation forced on Stephen from some unknown force that Martin was wielding. 

Unfortunately none of it worked for me at all.