It sounds like the prerequisite for a self Ruben Östlund Satire: The richest people in the world gather for a glamorous and environmental charity gala in a Santorini mining, just for the feature to be enhanced by the heavily armed members of a wild youth-cult-led by an Immaculate Anya Taylor-Joy, her character Styled and scraped as a Hideo Kojima Fever Dream – who says they have to throw three of the guests in a nearby volcano to fulfill the “prophecy” and save the planet.
In fact it is however Romain Gavras’ “Sacrifice“Is both a little more fun and a lot more messier than it sounds on paper. An advancing (and fun) comedy that gradually blends into a dreamlike (and not so funny) modern fable, this hyper-styled whatsit can be best when shooting in a thin, but Gavras ” film Is much less interested in pirating fun on simple goals than exploiting their characters-both terrorist and hostage-for unformed ideas about truth, performance and death power in death against a society so ego-driven that it is impossible to see the difference between heroes and clowns.
It is also a society that is so thoroughly self -confidence that “stories have the power to change the world” to tell them has become the only meaningful act it has the courage to take. And if “sacrifice” reserves its satire’s shock to such a neoliberal slogan (familiar to anyone who has gone to a North American film festival for the past 15 years), Gavra’s wild swing works almost because it also believes in these words with more conviction than the average movie would ever dare. Stories do Has the power to change the world, Gavras and his co -author will suggest (“inheritance”) ultimately suggest; this Don’t, but it’s still willing to die to get that point.
“Golden Globe-Loser” Mike Tyler (a bearded Chris Evans, who delivers its most fun and self-reflexive performance then “not another teenage film”), on the other, is too vain and on the verge of a nervous degradation to affect some kind of real change. A mourning A-lists that literally flamed out on the red carpet in its latest blockbuster by stripping naked and torch everything in sight, Mike has spent in recent months living at a monastery and/or getting a Turkish hair transplant, and the environmental fair represents its re-entry into the public. His agent (Sam Richardson) hopes that it will be a good opportunity to change the story, but Galas host-a bald billionaire played by Gavra’s regular Vincent Cassel, his Ben Bracken a dead call for Jeff Bezos-Har clearly invited Mike as a punchline. It’s hard to be the most embarrassing at a party dressed with signs like “Make Earth Cool Again”, but our boy finds a way.
The shit doesn’t really However, beating the fan until Mike goes to the toilet to hide and browse Twitter for all culpable reactions to his latest stunt (for all its fault, “Sacrifice” deserves credit as the first movie to break a genuine laugh from a shot of a social media’s advanced statistics). Sitting on the toilet and soaking up his latest digital suicide, mike isn’t there to see charli xcx treat the gala attendees to a Cringe-Banger about the Environmental apocalypse (the “brat” iConoclast is in this Movie for About fivetes, and still Laughs), or to see it get interrupted by an Army of Machine Gun-Wielding Child Soldiers Who are so fashionable and coordinated that the audience thinks they are part of the show. To influence meaningful change – or suffering from the lack of it – has become so abstract for the rich and powerful that everything feels like entertainment for them.
It is not until Joan (Taylor-Joy) orders one of her underlines to machete someone’s arm of people starting to panic. She demands three sacrifices: Ben Bracken, a rented singer (Ambika Mod) and an unidentified “hero” to be chosen by applause-o-meter. When Mike forgot the dining room again to enthusiastic cheers, he is too happy to accept the role. And just when it started to seem like he might never be thrown again! Joan insists that they only have two days to save the world, so she, her little brother (a wonderful deadpan Jonatan “Young Lean” Leandoer), and some other members of her ultra -Blonde “Green Isis” leading their VIP on the long hike to the lip on the volcano that steams.
“Sacrifice” loses too much of its own steam after the action decreases from the incredible quarry where it began, when Gavras challenges itself to see its usual fixations in a slightly different light. A nepo baby couple excellence whose brilliant music videos have given way to a virtuosic but uneven trio of movie about dispossessed French youth and their violent attemts at sociopolitical reclamation (the nascent “our day will come,” the Incredible ” “Athena”), Gavras Has Stayed relatively on-fire for his English-Language debut. If something is “victim” even more full of the filmmaker’s prevailing ethos, since the film literally begins with Joan explaining that “the old way must burn to ashes for the new way of being born.” As in his previous work, that process for transfiguration will be galvanized with flames (Cue: Leonard Cohen’s “Who by Fire”), but this time it is very self -seeking to do on the way to Inferno.
After the unmatched spectacle with “Athena”, it is a reason that Gavras may want to slow things a little; Shopping collective anger for a more character -controlled story and impossible tracking images for routine maximalism. But even with an assist from Arbery, Gavras remains a predominantly visual filmmaker in the heart, and to look at him withdraw in prolonged dialogue scenes and A24-coded surrealism gives the last hour of “victim” with that kind of square stick in a round hole Discomfort that you might know if Guy Maddin tried to make “Fight Club” (okay, bad example, that sounds fantastic).
Gavras seems to divide in the discomfort himself, because he strives for different ways – most of those who arrest to look at but unintended to watch – to spiff the simple “will he/not him?” Ask if Mike will choose to jump into the volcano at the end of the movie (a “hero” cannot be shot). The Kaufman-Esque sequence that chases a constant Balding Mike through his film roles and against his fate is great fun to watch, but in the end notices the relative torpor that surrounds it. Later, Gavras in a long detour into the underground bunker where Joan’s father (John Malkovich) leads up for the apocalypse, which is a miracle of set design, but a wasted opportunity to seek deeper in the space between action and self -interest.
Joan and her dad are both convinced that the world will end when that volcano breaks out, but only one of them is willing to sit on the line to stop it. “Nothing is real until you face death,” Joan insists on the flat monotonous in a true believer, and “sacrifice” is nothing if not a movie about what people are willing to give up to affect some kind of meaningful change.
In his own roundabout and increasingly independent way, Gavra is aiming for a culture that is more interested in telling a flattering story about himself than making the world a better place and “sacrifice” – until its credit – is determined to get involved in that connection at an elementary level. Digging much deeper into the human soul obsidian stone than Gavras has discovered the tools to reach.
It would have been easy to control a character like Mike through a personal awakening that led to him exploding his ego, fell in love with Joan and learns to believe in something bigger than himself without risking anything right, but Gavras chases a deeper and molecular type of transformation. Stories can change the world, he insists, but only if they inspire us to change ourselves. “Victim” will convince you so much. If it just didn’t have to give up so much of itself to get the job done.
Rating: B-
“Sacrifice” premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival 2025. It is currently seeking US distribution.
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