Thoroughbreds?
What would you call two very attractive upper class suburban teens? White of course.
Oh, and one of them is a true “social misfit”.
One thing for sure, when trouble stalks, they can always use these advantages to nudge things in their direction. In fact the only thing that might possibly stop them from prevailing here is the script.
And that’s where the suspense lies. Once you make up your mind whether to like them or not you can choose sides and root for a winner. Then intertwining one of the darker shades of “human nature” with what may or may not be described as “diseased minds”, you react to it from inside your own more or less diseased brain.
Some might call this a “black comedy”. But not everybody. A horror film actually seems more applicable. Of the “psychological” sort.
Basically, it revolves around the gap that sometimes appears between what we see on the surface of that demographic embodying the American dream, and the grotesque slimeballs that are down deeper.
You just never really know, do you?
Look for that truly scary sociopathic personality here. Some apparently are born this way, while others apparently are made. But once you assume that everything revolves around a carefully calculated cost/benefit analysis of “what’s in it for me?”, you can focus in more on what’s really important: not getting caught.
IMDb
This was Anton Yelchin’s final film before his death on June 19, 2016 at the age of 27.
at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thoroughbreds_(2017_film
trailer: youtu.be/TPcV_3D3V2A
Thoroughbreds [2017]
Written and directed by Cory Finley
Lily: Well, I guess you’re feeling a lot of… feelings, uh, right now.
Amanda: Well, that’s the funny thing, actually. I really don’t.
Lily: Don’t what?
Amanda: Feel anything.
Lily: Like, you’re numb? Like you don’t have any negative feelings…
Amanda: Like I don’t have any feelings, ever.
Lily [scoffing]: Sure, you do.
Amanda: I mean sometimes I feel hungry or tired. But, like, joy, guilt? I really don’t have any of those.
Lily: I don’t understand.
Amanda: Yeah, it’s hard to explain. It’s really only recently that I’ve been able to admit it to myself. Because I’ve gotten so good at watching and imitating other people’s emotions that I sort of tricked myself into believing I have them, but I don’t.
Lily: So that’s a, um…
Amanda: A what?
Lily: A disorder or something?
Amanda: Oh. Well, the shrink would sure like it to be. First it was borderline personality, then severe depression, yesterday, she said it was antisocial with schizoid tendency. She’s basically just flipping to random pages of the DSM-5 and throwing medications at me. But I have a perfectly healthy brain. It just doesn’t contain feelings. And that doesn’t necessarily make me a bad person. It just means I have to work a little harder than everyone else to be good.
No comment, he thought.
[b]Amanda [after an alarm goes off]: Glad you set an alarm to make sure we didn’t hang out longer than intended.
Lily: Oh, no… I mean, it…I have this thing with my mom…
Amanda: You know, I have my mom’s email password. It means I read her inbox daily. I saw your thread with her. How she had to bump up from a hundred to two hundred an hour to get you to do this. Just next time, don’t say you’re not charging. She was desperate to set up a playdate, by the way. She’s been trying for two weeks. You could have gotten five hundred out of her if you’d stood pat.
…
Amanda [of Mark, Lily’s stepdad]: Because he’s rich?
Lily: Excuse me?
Amanda: Because he leaves you envelopes of money?
Lily: Okay, that was for my broken laptop. He doesn’t just leave me envelopes of money…
Amanda: Okay, but you and your mom must still know that it’s in your best interest to keep him happy.
Lily [leaving the table]: Okay…I think we’re done here.
…
Amanda: I just think you should be honest about your feelings. Otherwise it starts coming out in passive-aggressive ways. Like, for instance, you start inviting your creepy friend over to make him mad.
Lily: That’s not why you’re here.
Amanda: Of course it is.
Lily: Look, if that’s how you feel, then why don’t you go ask your mom to buy you another friend? I’m sure you’re just rolling in options…The answer is “D, ambivalent.”
…
Lily: You’re not hurt?
Amanda: It’s the first honest thing you’ve said to me since sixth grade.
Lily [after a long sigh]: You’re incredibly off-putting and you freak me out.
Amanda: There you go.
Lily: In kind of a fascinating way, like a YouTube video of a giant zit being popped or a baby born without a face.
…
Amanda [tears streaming down her face]: The Technique.
Lily: Holy shit. You can just do that on cue?
Amanda: Years of practice.
Lily: Can you teach me?
Amanda: So you basically have to learn all the automatic, like, processes that get triggered when you cry, and then sort of manually generate each one. It feeds back to the brain, and then the tears just come naturally.
…
Mark: Just grabbin’ my juice.
Amanda [after Mark leaves the room]: His juice?
Lily: It’s a cleanse. Three weeks out of the month he pounds steak, and the last week he juices exclusively.
Amanda: Is that healthy?
Lily: I think you’re only supposed to do it once a year. Hopefully, one of these days he’ll just juice himself to death.
…
Amanda: You ever think about just killing him?
Lily: I mean, no.
Amanda: You could at least consider Just weigh the pros and cons.
Lily: No.
Amanda: Why don’t you consider all options? Yeah, sure it’s outside the box, but you can only get so far thinking how everyone else thinks. Look at Steve Jobs.
…
Amanda: It’s a cost-benefit analysis. It seems like you could generate a lot of benefit for a lot of people.
Lily: Except I’d spend the rest of my life in jail.
Amanda: Why are you assuming you’d get caught?
Lily: I should not have to explain this.
Amanda: Probably what people said to Columbus when he was like, “I think the world is round, instead of flat and surrounded by dragons.” They were like, “No, dumbass, we shouldn’t have to explain this.” It’s probably what people said to Steve Jobs when he was like, “This MP3 player is also a phone.”
Lily: Okay, can we please stop talking about Steve Jobs? Steve Jobs never fucking murdered someone.
Amanda: I think most of this country’s moral norms comes from weird old Puritan bullshit. A human life isn’t some sacred thing. There’s nothing holy about a dick and a vaj getting together and spitting out a little dude. If that dude causes more bad than good, then he’s like a, you know… a piece of malfunctioning machinery.
Lily: A lame horse.
Amanda: Right. Should be taken out back and put down.
Lily: You know what you sound like?
Amanda: What?
Lily: A Nazi.
Amanda: I had to leave school before we did World War II but I think it was about race, with them?
Lily: I think you should leave.
…
Tim [the local scruffy dealer]: Where did you go to school?
Lily: I board.
Tim: And it makes you miserable. It’s like a glorified fuckin’ prison. You ever think about dropping out?
Lily: Why would I do that?
Tim: It’s what I did. Followed my, uh, entrepreneurial instincts. It’s the best decision I ever made.
Lily: Clearly.
Tim: You know, the thing about this town is…the sawdust smells fantastic, but you are still in a hamster cage. Meanwhile, out there, there are more billionaires under 30 than at any moment in human history. It’s our time, motherfucker.
…
Lily [watching Amanda standing completely still in the back yard just staring into the woods]: What’s she doing out there?
Karen [Amanda’s mom]: I don’t know.
…
Lily [hesitantly]: That thing you said the other night.
Amanda: Which thing?
Lily: About Mark.
Amanda: Yeah?
Lily: Well, you said something like, “Why are you assuming you’d get caught?”
Amanda: Uh-huh.
Lily: So, like… hypothetically, if you were going to do it, how would you… do it?
Amanda: Well, I wouldn’t…do it. That’s what you want me to say.
Lily: I don’t want you to say anything. Just asking.
…
Cynthia [Lily’s mom]: We’ve been having the conversation about next year, and we feel really good about Brookmore. He has a friend who’s on the board and they’re really very good at…
Lily: Brookmore is a place for girls with very severe behavioral issues. How is this even part of the conversation?
Cynthia: That’s not true.
Lily: If I’m not readmitted, then I’m staying local. He doesn’t want me here.
Cynthia: No… No, that’s not it at all. You know how much effort he puts in every day getting closer to you. I got admitted into Andover, I’ve…
Mark [walking in to the room]: You were admitted to Andover because your dad wrote them a check. This is a not a conversation. We’ve already made the down payment.
…
Lily: I saw the photos. Oh. You’re not gonna say anything?
Amanda: What do you want me to say?
Lily: I guess I didn’t realize you did it like that.
Amanda: Well, that’s not how I wanted it to go. Obviously, I wanted to get it done by a vet. He was never gonna walk again. But you know my mom. She’s the type of person that gets weepy when she imagines her horse going to sleep and never waking up. And when a… weak moral character like that runs your household…
Lily: But still, you didn’t have to…
Amanda: Well, if the Midazolam Hydrochloride had worked like it was supposed to, then it just would have been…Unfortunately, quality control on black-market drugs is poor. Honeymooner was going into convulsions. He was bucking hard and he broke the splint. And then he broke the other leg, too. By that point, it just became a question of ending it as quickly as possible. And I Googled methods of execution. I didn’t have a gun, so that was out. But in Mexico, they use something called a “puntilla.”
Lily: A what?
Amanda: A puntilla. It’s like a curved blade. Like an ice pick. You jam it behind the cervical vertebrae, and they go limp.
Lily: And you had a puntilla?
Amanda: Kinda. It stopped the convulsions, but the problem with puntilla execution is, it doesn’t actually kill the horse, it just paralyzes them. And obviously I didn’t want that for Honeymooner. So, I climbed on top of him, he was on the ground at this point, and I started cutting away the flesh of his neck. The goal was to get to the spine as quickly as possible and it took some time. The muscle had a lot of gristle in it and the knife got dull pretty quickly, but I got there…And then I… I just stood up and I got my foot into a position where I could kick downwards, and…I think it felt right. That it was me who did it. After all the years I’d spent with that horse. I just put my head down, and looked at it as completing a task.[/b]
Next up: Mark. Cue Tim.
[b]Tim: Yes, I have a gun.
Amanda: Multiple guns?
Tim: Multiple guns… No! One! One gun! What, am I, fucking Rambo?
Amanda: Do you have it on you?
Tim: Why do you care?
Lily: He’s lying.
Tim: I have a gun.
Amanda: Good.
Tim: Why “good?”
Amanda: Because then Lily has a business proposition for you.
…
Amanda [to Lily after knocking out Tim with a lamp]: You cannot hesitate. The only thing worse than being incompetent or being unkind or being evil is being indecisive.
…
Tim: You can’t give the fucking hole in my head time to close?
Lily: It has to be Saturday. I’m on vacation with my mom, and Amanda’s at a residential psychotherapy program.
Amanda: If you tell anyone about any of this or if you don’t do your job, we’ll send the audio, which we’ve put online, to the police.
Tim: I’m out. I’m out. You… you try anything, you’re going to jail.
Amanda: I’m sorry, who…who’s going to jail? We’re just two minors with incredibly expensive family lawyers. On the other hand, if you have one more legal issue, even a minor drug offense, you’re getting 15 years.
…
Lily [after Tim backs out]: We’ll do it ourselves.
Amanda: I don’t think you’re in the right mindset to be planning this.
Lily: What kind of mindset am I in?
Amanda: Lighting a cigarette indoors. That kind of mindset.
Lily: Oh, is this your house? Or is this my house?
Amanda: I’m just saying, that if we’re gonna do this it’s because it’s the right thing to do. Not because you’re upset and you’re going through a hard time.
Lily: What kind of “hard time” am I going through? My life is fine right now…
Amanda: I mean, you got expelled from Andover. And you lied to me about your internship.
…
Lily: Leave her.
Mark: What’s that?
Lily: If you want what’s best for her…leave her.
Mark [approaching her]: You couldn’t possibly understand someone else’s point of view. Could you? Not mine, not your friends’, definitely not your mom’s.
Lily: Fuck you.
Mark: Because in your brain, all these people are just little offshoots of your consciousness. We’re all your maids, aren’t we? Your cleaning ladies. Your personal trainers. You know what? Put all the shit in your lungs that you want. We need to stop protecting you. Life needs to knock you around a little. Oh, and the only reason that I am still sending you to Brookmore is that I’ve paid in full. After that, you’re off my payroll…princess.
…
Lily: You didn’t do anything.
Amanda: You were never unsafe.
Lily: So, you’re okay with him talking to me like that?
Amanda: He’s a cock. Is that new information for us? Honestly, he’s not even that off-base. I mean, empathy isn’t your strong suit. But you know that.
…
Amanda [seeing tears on Lily’s cheeks]: Hey! There you go.
Lily: What?
Amanda: The Technique. You’ve been practicing.
Lily: I’m not using The Technique, Amanda. Hey, can I ask you something?
Amanda: Yeah.
Lily: Do you remember that time in ninth grade when we were driving home from my dad’s funeral, and you were holding me, and we were crying?
Amanda: Yeah.
Lily: Were you using The Technique?
Amanda: Yeah. That was good, wasn’t it?
…
Amanda [watching an old Shirley Temple movie with Lily]: It’s funny to think how everyone in this movie is dead now. Or, like, at least very old. He’s probably got a motor-scooter now. She pees in a bag. She’s an obligation to her family. They take turns visiting her. And… and when they sit next to her bed and this movie comes on the TV, she goes, “My, - what a pretty young thing…”
Lily: You’re bumming me out.
…
Lily: Do you remember that stuff you were saying to Tim the other day? The stuff about how his life isn’t worth living.
Amanda: Yeah.
Lily: Do you ever ask that question about yourself?
Amanda: Like, any of our lives? Like, in a philosophical sense?
Lily: Like your life in particular. I just mean like If you can’t feel anything, like, even happiness or… I’m so sorry. I… I didn’t mean that.
Amanda: No, it’s… It’s okay. I just never really thought about it.
Lily [abruptly]: Stop. I drugged it.
Amanda: You what?
Lily: I put Rohypnol in my drink?
Amanda: You roofied me.
Lily: Yeah.
Amanda: Why?
Lilly: Because I was gonna knock you out and then go upstairs. And afterwards I was gonna put the knife in your hand to make it look like you’d…Oh, I’m so sorry, okay? I… I don’t even know what I was thinking. Just…Just give me the glass and I’ll throw them both away…
[Amanda gulps down the rest of it]
Lily: Stop. Stop it.
…
Lily: Do you know what this does?
Amanda: Oh, yeah. It, um…Oh, God, you really dosed this motherfucker up.
Lily: Why would you do that?
Amanda: I live a meaningless life…I’m a skilled imitator.
…
Lily: Just so you know… I’m glad you didn’t show up.
Tim: Okay.
Lily: I wanted her to forget all about it, but…she…felt differently.
Tim: Did you, uh…talk to her after that?
Lily [shaking her head]: She did write me a letter, though. About a week ago.
[segue to Amanda in confinement]
Amanda [voiceover]: Things actually aren’t bad here. Food’s okay, staff are generally nice people. The therapists have been working with me to fill in my memories of those missing hours. And it’s kind of a fun exercise. I can tell them fucking anything and they’ll just write it down and nod. In other news, the ol’ medication-of-the-month club is back in full swing, and the latest ones are making me sleep 14 hours a day and dream constantly. You’re in a lot of them. In one of the recurring ones, we’re in your living room, and I’ve just drank your drugged screwdriver…and you’re screaming, asking me why I did it. Asking me why I have a horse’s head instead of my face. And I wanna tell you that I don’t, but I turn to you and I open my mouth and all that comes out is a horse’s neigh…And then there’s this other recurring dream that doesn’t involve you at all. And it goes like this: I’m Honeymooner, and I’m dying. And I rise out of my body, and I’m staring down at our whole suburb, and time is speeding up. And I see generations of people coming, and going, and building bigger houses. And then eventually the people start spending more and more of their time staring at their smartphones. And soon enough, they’re forgetting to clean their houses, or mow their lawns, or eat, and eventually, all the houses rot and collapse, and the people disappear, vanishing completely into the Internet. And then…and this is the really beautiful part…the horses take over. And the whole suburb is just beautiful thoroughbred stallions with no owners and no memory of owners and no way of knowing how expensive they are, just mating and galloping through the ruins.
Tim: What did it say?
Lily: I don’t know. I just threw it away.[/b]