The Killing of a Sacred Deer (2017)

Director Yorgis Lanthimos' fascinating, disturbing allegorical tale is about a cardiologist (a shaggy-bearded Colin Farrell looking like serial killer surgeon Harold Shipman) whose wife and children are made to bear the price of his sins, and it is so rhythmic, so hypnotic, by the end you will be able to predict next lines even while the point of the whole eludes you.

★★★★☆

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The Favourite (2018)

Director Yorgis Lanthimos's latest and most accessible movie to date tells of Queen Anne's friendships with the privileged Lady Sarah and 'downstairs' Abigail, two women in competition to be the Queen's favourite; sumptuous period detail, a cracker performance by Olivia Coleman as Queen Anne, and titled chapters that recall Barry Lyndon help disguise the fact that this is essentially an episode of Melrose Place transported to the 1700s - one of the ones where Jane Mancini and her sister Sydney Andrews fight and end up in the pool.

★★★★☆

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The Lobster (2015)

Several analogies about relationships and singledom, each of momentary interest, are thrown together into one excruciatingly long, incredibly boring mess of a movie about love in a rigidly dichotomous future world; it plays out like a five minute comedy skit stretched to two (or was it three?) hours and for all its effort, offers very little in the way of meaningful relationship insights.

★☆☆☆☆

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