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