this was the first time i saw Anya-Taylor Joy in anything and she was great, as was Olivia Cooke. i laughed out loud several times during this and it's all moments involving her character, which isn't really surprising given the other characters. probably the biggest laugh out of me was when the stepdad asks Amanda what her mom is busy with and she says "Chemotherapy" and he just walks off. it was a familiar laugh like i felt i've seen that situation or a similar situation before but it just got me. The dialogue between the two girls when they're talking to a third party (stepdad, Tim) is really entertaining how Amanda just follows up with a quip and they're kind of in a rhythm and i can buy that they were previous best friends who are falling back to their groove. again, it's a familiar-feeling setup but still enjoyable.
there's a lot of moments where the camera just shfits focus. unsure about whether it was intentional or some technical thing i'm unfamiliar with but it felt a lot more noticeable here than other films/videos. the first time is within like three minutes of the opening where Amanda is looking out into the backyard(?) and the worker/pool cleaner(?) walks by.
i think the line that stood out to me the most was after the chess scene and they had just talked about Amanda killing the horse and Lily brings up the plan for the stepdad again. Amanda says, "Are you looking at me?" (?) and Lily responds with "Only because you're the only person here." Like she sees Amanda as a pawn to get what she wants and in the end, Amanda is fine with that. I love the shot of her in the end where she is looking at the picture of their younger selves and the horses. Previously, she had been looking into mirrors and practicing smiling and here we see her first "real" smile.
SwiftyDC posted...
Not sure what that ending was about but at least write her back saying THANK YOU! Lily's stepdad was totally right about her, treating people like they're her maids in life.
yeah it's so fitting that the few scenes we see the stepdad, one of them is him chewing her out for smoking in the house and snapping at the mom for fussing after he's super irritated following an injury. like that's what justifies her reason for murder in her limited, spoiled teenage worldview.
but i don't know if i believe Lily when she says she just "threw it away." like throughout the film she's shown lying or being dishonest ("tutoring," college admission plagiarism, the party, etc.) and Amanda breaks through to her a bit in the beginning confronting her about it, and in the end, Lily breaks and comes clean about actually killing her stepdad and framing her for it. probably that moment of what she saw as pure honesty combined with the realization of "living a meaningless life" pushed her into "well i might as well be of use to her" territory. but after Lily kills the stepdad, she places herself in Amanda's arms. she's obviously shaken up and wants to feel any amount of safety/comfort. was she fine with using Amanda for that as well because "she was the only one there" as she said before? maybe. but Amanda was also like the only person she was honest with and I can see her just lying to Tim because you're not "supposed" to be in contact with an old friend who murdered your stepdad. most people would not want anything more to do with someone if they did that. But in Lily's case, Amanda actually didn't do that and i thought it was ambiguous whether Lily viewed Amanda as really just a pawn or something more.