History Film / Thoroughbreds

* NotSoDifferent:
** Amanda and Lily. They appear to be total opposites, as Lily is a preppy, high-achieving StepfordSmiler with an excellent reputation, and Amanda is a sociopath with absolutely no friends or moral scruples. [[spoiler:But Lily has also been faking most of this all along; she was also thrown out and ostracized from her old school, and she murders Mark and frames Amanda for it rather than go to boarding school.]]
** Perhaps more disturbingly, Lily and Mark. [[spoiler:Mark is a total asshole and obsessive ControlFreak who gets close to threatening Lily with violence on one occasion. However, Lily herself shows that she can be extremely violent towards Mark when he threatens to dismantle her perfect life, which is symbolically represented by her taking his car after she kills him and gets away with it.]]

** In the backstory, [Amanda attempted to MercyKill her horse, but it wound up being a brutally violent act. This shows both Amanda's relative moral code, and her willingness to kill if she thinks it's for the greater good.

* RealityEnsues: [[spoiler:Your average, low-level drug dealer isn't going to be 100% on board with murdering someone, even for money. Tim bails on the plan at the first opportunity, knowing the girls can't report him. Amanda and Lily decide to cut their losses and let him go.]]

* SpoiledBrat: Lily is this, though she denies it.

** In the backstory, [[spoiler:Amanda attempted to MercyKill her horse, but it wound up being a brutally violent act. This shows both Amanda's relative moral code, and her willingness to kill if she thinks it's for the greater good.]]

* ColdOpen: The movie starts with Amanda inside a stable at night with a horse, picking up a knife. [[spoiler: It's later revealed that she killed the horse as a MercyKill.]]

* DoWrongRight: Amanda has no problem with Lily wanting to kill her stepfather. However, she's very insistent that they do it ''for the right reasons.'' [[spoiler:This also applies to how she killed her horse. For what it's worth, Amanda truly intended to give the animal a quick death, for what she felt were necessary reasons.]]

* MercyKill: [[spoiler:Amanda killed her own horse before the events of the film because it had broken a leg and her mother didn't have the courage to euthanize it. However, since Amanda was ill-prepared, what was supposed to be a quick, painless death turned into a very drawn-out and bloody process]].
* MoralSociopathy: Amanda. She doesn't feel anything -- not guilt, fear, happiness, sadness, or even anger. However, she says that she can still be a good person, she just has to work harder at it than most. She's still perfectly willing to kill Mark, but says it's because he does more bad than good; the way she sees it, human life isn't inherently sacred, and some people are better off dead. She also claims she only [[spoiler:killed her horse because he was in pain and going to die anyway, and her mother refused to take him to the vet to have him put down. She also tried to do it quickly and painlessly, though it didn't work out that way]]. She's never cruel just for the sake of it, [[spoiler:and willingly takes the fall for Lily in the end]], so she ''does'' seem to follow a code. Her code is just [[BlueAndOrangeMorality different.]]

* MercyKill: [[spoiler:Amanda killed her own horse before the events of the film because it had broken a leg and her mother didn't have the courage to euthanize it. However, since Amanda was ill-prepared, what was supposed to be a quick, painless death turned into a very slow and bloody process]].

* MercyKill: [[spoiler:Amanda kills her own horse before the events of the film. She cites this as the reason why she did it.]]

* DownerEnding: [[spoiler:Lily gets away with murdering Mark and framing Amanda. While Amanda is stuck in an institution, Lily moves on and is about to get into college. When Amanda writes a meaningful letter about her dreams, Lily throws it away without reading it. Or at least that's what she tells Tim.]]
** [[spoiler: Amanda is fine though, and actually genuinely smiles when looking at a photo of her and Lily as kids riding horses.]]

** ''Mark''. While he isn't abusive to Lilly, he's so rude, nasty, and aggressive that it seems unlikely anyone will feel any sympathy for him [[spoiler:even after Lily kills him.]]

* BlueAndOrangeMorality: The way Amanda sees it, murder is okay if the victim is deserving.
** Amanda has a strange moral system in general. She doesn’t mind that her mother has to ‘buy’ friends for her, but is offended by Lily’s lying about it. She’s also obviously very confused when Lily asks her to leave after Amanda casually suggested [[spoiler:that Lily should kill Mark.]]

* {{Jerkass}}: Mark. Good lord, what an ''asshole''.
* JerkassHasAPoint: While Mark's lecture to Lily is cruel, it's not totally inaccurate. Amanda even says as much.

* AbusiveParents: Subverted. [[spoiler: At the start, Mark is implied to be this, but by the end of the film it becomes apparent that he's just a jerk.]]

The film is notable for being Anton Yelchin's last movie, as he died in a freak auto-related accident exactly two weeks after filming.

* FreudianExcuse: It's implied Lily never got over the death of her father.

* AmbiguousSituation: [[spoiler:Did Lily really throw Amanda's letter away?]]

''Thoroughbreds'' is a BlackComedy thriller starring [[Series/BatesMotel Olivia Cooke]] and Creator/AnyaTaylorJoy, and written and directed by Cory Finley (in his directorial debut.) It was actually filmed in 2016 and premiered at Sundance in 2017, but did not get a theatrical release until March 2018.

* AmbiguousDisorder: Amanda doesn't feel anything due to an unspecified disorder, though ''why'' she doesn't is never explained.

* CrocodileTears: "The Technique."

The film's plot involves a couple of upper class teenagers, Amanda and Lily. The pair used to be friends when they were younger, but grew apart over time. Amanda is an emotionless sociopath and is a loner, while Lily is overly emotional but the more socially and academically gifted of the two. They begin hanging out again initially so Lily can tutor Amanda, but soon develop a plot to murder Lily's emotionally abusive stepfather Mark (Paul Sparks).

''Thoroughbreds'' is a BlackComedy thriller starring [[Series/BatesMotel Olivia Cooke]] and Creator/AnyaTaylorJoy, and written and directed by Cory Finley (in his directorial debut). It was actually filmed in 2016 and premiered at Sundance in 2017, but did not get a theatrical release until March 2018.

* VillainousFriendship: Lily and Amanda are best friends -- as much as Amanda is capable of having friends, anyway.

* SpoiledBrat: Lily is this, though she denies it. She clearly has a nice car, and at the beginning of the film Amanda sees an envelope marked "Lily" with a large amount of cash inside of it.

* TamperingWithFoodAndDrink: [[spoiler: Lily spikes Amanda's vodka screwdriver with roofies in order to act out the plan seen in TakingTheHeat. Amanda chugs the drink and tells her to go along with it.]]

* WasItAllALie: Upon finding out Amanda literally cannot feel ''anything'', Lily understandably wonders this about their whole friendship. Amanda seems to like her as much as she is able, but [[spoiler:admits she faked crying at Lily's dad's funeral]].

* RichPeople: Most of the characters in the film are rich, Mark in particular.

* KarmaHoudini: [[spoiler:Lily stabs Mark to death at the end of the movie and frames Amanda for it.]]

* MoralSociopathy: Amanda. Sorta. She doesn't feel anything -- not guilt, fear, happiness, sadness, or even anger. However, she says that she can still be a good person, she just has to work harder at it than most. She's still perfectly willing to kill Mark, but says it's because he does more bad than good; the way she sees it, human life isn't inherently sacred, and some people are better off dead. She also claims she only [[spoiler:killed her horse because he was in pain and going to die anyway, and her mother refused to take him to the vet to have him put down. She also tried to do it quickly and painlessly, though it didn't work out that way]]. She's never cruel just for the sake of it, [[spoiler:and willingly takes the fall for Lily in the end]], so she ''does'' seem to follow some sort of code. Her code is just... [[BlueAndOrangeMorality different]].

* EmotionlessGirl: Amanda. She generally creeps everyone out and is completely unfazed by everything, though she argues it doesn't make her a bad person. [[spoiler:Lily becomes as cold and unfeeling as Amanda by the end, while Amanda begins to feel.]]

* {{Foil}}: Amanda and Lily. Amanda is an EmotionlessGirl who compels Lily to murder Mark, while Lily is shown to be the more emotionally-driven of the two. [[spoiler:By the end, Lily is the Emotionless Girl, while Amanda is finally shown emoting.]]

** Amanda is fine though, and actually [[spoiler: genuinely smiles when looking at a photo of her and Lily as kids riding horses.

* DoWrongRight: Amanda has no problem with Lily wanting to kill her stepfather, and even encourages it. However, she's very insistent that they do it ''right''. [[spoiler:This also applies to how she killed her horse. For what it's worth, Amanda truly intended to give the animal a quick death, for what she felt were necessary reasons.]]

* DownerEnding: [[spoiler:Lily gets away with murdering Mark and framing Amanda. While Amanda is stuck in an institution, Lily moves on and is about to get into college. When Amanda writes a meaningful letter about her dreams, Lily just throws it away without reading it. Or at least that's what she tells Tim.]]