A film that features one young woman asking another “is this your sword” during the opening scene, Thoroughbreds is as dryly aware of its style as the girls themselves are of their posh upbringing in horse country. Their names are Amanda (Olivia Cooke) and Lily (Anya Taylor-Joy), and they’re such complements to each other that it’s hardly surprising they were friends in childhood before growing apart. That is until Amanda’s mother begs (and pays) Lily to reconnect with her wayward pal. It seems Amanda has had “issues” in recent years that made her a pariah, including personally euthanizing her prized horse with her own hands. Eventually the line blurs as to whose idea it is to “eliminate” Lily’s stepfather, but it would certainly seem to solve a lot of their problems. After all, this is simply a stylish coming of age story where each girl coaxes the other to come out of her shell and help pressure Anton Yelchin’s poor deluded stoner into killing a guy. What else could friends be for? There has been much made since Thoroughbreds’ Sundance premiere last year of its similarities to Heathers and other mean teen sprees. Yet this feels like it is on the wrong track. More artful and about the patient build-up to one bloody deed, as opposed to a satire of many, Thoroughbreds owes more to the era of Golden Age films that Amanda and Lily are always watching. In one of the film’s best moments, they critique the inability of 1940s movie starlets to cry without pinching their throats, a lifelong useful “technique” that one girl then passes to the other. Hardly a stranger at this point to the horror or thriller genres, Taylor-Joy continues to be a star on the rise by giving a disarming performance of well-groomed pleasantness masking unrestrained resentment. If Amanda has no feelings, then Lily is feeling all the time, and it is a total self-absorption that extends beyond puberty. Taylor-Joy finely underscores this with just enough self-doubt to keep audiences guessing about how far Lily can take this game. Yet the real revelation is Cooke, who gives a turn totally unlike anything we have seen from the young actor yet. Amanda would probably scowl at being called broken, but there is definitely a void in the woman’s empathy, if not her soul. For whatever she lacks though, there is also a genuine love for Lily. Cooke’s ability to bring it out is what provides a small layer of humanity hidden beneath the ice of the film’s chic tundra. further reading: The Must See Movies of 2018 Narratively, however, Finley seems to struggle at times with bringing all these elements to as pointed an edge as one of Amanda’s many truth bombs. Sparks and Yelchin, in one of the gifted younger actor’s final roles, are both well placed as obstacles in Lily and Amanda’s ways. Yelchin in particular finds an almost boyish innocence to a dimwitted 20-something creep who hangs around high schools to sell drugs to teenage girls. Yet, somehow, he and Finley make Yelchin seem the victim. But like the film’s final resolution, there is a lack of pinpoint precision to match the girls’ focus. These supporting roles, including of the intended yuppie victim, never quite get their due, and the film’s third act teases without quite striking the jugular. Even so, there is a chilly grace to Thoroughbreds’ mind games and twists, as well as its two leads, whose mutual bemusement suggests that there is nothing fake about their technique or that fatalistic bond it’s built on. Thoroughbreds opens in limited release on March 9.