7.2 | / 10 |
Users | 0.0 | |
Reviewer | 3.5 | |
Overall | 3.5 |
Two upper-class teenage girls in suburban Connecticut rekindle their unlikely friendship after years of growing apart. Together, they hatch a plan to solve both of their problems-no matter what the cost.
Starring: Olivia Cooke, Anya Taylor-Joy, Anton Yelchin, Paul Sparks, Francie SwiftPsychological thriller | 100% |
Dark humor | 54% |
Teen | 42% |
Thriller | Insignificant |
Drama | Insignificant |
Comedy | Insignificant |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 2.38:1
Original aspect ratio: 2.39:1
English: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1
Spanish: DTS 5.1
French: DTS 5.1
English SDH, French, Spanish
Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
Digital copy
Slipcover in original pressing
Region A, B (C untested)
Movie | 4.5 | |
Video | 4.0 | |
Audio | 4.0 | |
Extras | 1.5 | |
Overall | 3.5 |
Just based off the title, one might be forgiven for imagining Thoroughbreds to be some party-hard movie about a couple of girls who were born-and-bred for boozing or maybe even bumping uglies. But that's not what this is. At all. Writer/Director Cory Finley's film, originally conceived for the stage but ultimately reworked for the screen, tells the story of a pair of disparate and, in their own ways, desperate teenage girls who hatch a plan to pull off a murder. The story is incredibly basic but at its center is a much more complex and demanding, but never convoluted, introspective into the girls' hearts, minds, and souls, exploring the best and worst of who they are and what drives them towards the unspeakable. It's a movie that's not thoroughly or traditionally entertaining but that is thoroughly well crafted and dramatically engaging and certainly one of the year's best little movies.
Thoroughbreds wasn't crafted with visual excess in mind. The film was digitally shot with anamorphic lenses. The resultant image, and Blu-ray transfer, is a bit soft, yields some smudgy edges but there's also a resultant intimacy and character definition that the Blu-ray handles with grace. What the image lacks in film-based cinematic texturing it recoups by way of steady, sturdy textures that are critical in character close-up, both in focus and out of focus areas, that allows for the clarity of actor expressiveness and revelation of inward storytelling emotions that are so necessary to the movie's tone, pace, and narrative. Essential details around the mansion are nicely revealing, lacking that absolute crispness but enjoying enough structural integrity to please. Colors appear a little faded by design, not desaturating the palette but certainly de-emphasizing color as a point of interest. The result is fairly routine warm woods and marble in the mansion, clothes that don't jump, slightly pale skin tones, and dreary, washed-out black levels. Noise is off minimal concern and other source or encode flaws are few and far between. Considering the movie's intended visual structure, it's difficult to be too critical of this image, even if it's not the sharpest, cleanest, more bountifully colorful on the market.
Thoroughbreds features a bread-and-butter DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 lossless soundtrack. The film's sonic needs are not immense, but they need be precise. A burst of tribal drums every few moments punctuates the open, playing to good spacing and low end effect. Other than that, sound never rises to any level of intensity until the 35-minute mark when Mark's aerobic rowing exercises, which grate on Lily's nerves, are heightened to punctuate a moment when Lily, and the story, take a major turn. The film features various one-off effects, such as a piercing tone midway through as Lily imagines Amanda's killing of her horse. Such little deviances are welcome and play well, and the film uses its sound effectively and sporadically to enhance a plot point or build a narrative advancement. There are few ambient effects of note, perhaps the most sonically populous coming partway through when the audience is introduced to Tim. Dialogue propels the film forward, and it presents in perfect working order, even in what is sometimes near whispered volume.
Thoroughbreds' Blu-ray release contains deleted scenes and two featurettes. A Movies Anywhere digital copy code is included with purchase.
Thoroughbreds is one of the best little films of the year. It's a welcome departure from large-budget extravagance, a movie that builds its cinema capital on intimate characterization and subtle ebbs and flows that ultimately lead to a powerful wave of character intensity. It's sharply written, very well acted, smartly photographed, and crisply edited, yielding a wonderful, must-see picture. Universal's Blu-ray offers good video and audio alongside a couple of deleted scenes and two featurettes. Recommended.
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