"We have a natural curiosity about places that are exotically rich,” says director Cory Finley, whose thriller Thoroughbreds premieres March 9. Finley is using that fact to his advantage. In his movie, which follows two upper crust girls gone very bad, prep schooler Lily (Anya Taylor-Joy) lives in a mansion so opulent the camera tags along when each visitor gets the tour. Lily’s stepfather fills his study with souvenirs from big game hunts and a mounted samurai sword—expensive hobbies that hint at violence to come. Meanwhile, her mother lounges in a tanning bed in the garage.
Hollywood’s fascination with posh potboilers stretches back to the mid-20th century, when Alfred Hitchcock’s Rebecca won an Academy Award. In that film a bride moves into Manderley, her new husband’s grand estate, only to discover it’s haunted by his dead wife, whose monogram is carved on the master bedroom door.
Ever since, setting scary movies among the one percent has captivated audiences and filmmakers. It’s no accident that Dracula stalks a castle and not a condo.
When Citizen Kane was released, in 1941, it wasn’t just a movie about a mogul’s dying words but a look at the darker aspects of extreme wealth. Director Orson Welles designed Charles Foster Kane’s home, Xanadu, to attack the millionaire inside. The house is so big it seems hungry; the fireplace alone could swallow the tycoon. Fast-forward 60 years, and American Psycho’s Patrick Bateman lives in an Upper West Side apartment as cold as his conscience. After killing a rival, he panics because the dead man had a better view of Central Park.
“Accumulating wealth is accumulating power,” Finley says. Power that should keep people safe. Lily or any of her predecessors, from The Talented Mr. Ripley’s Dickie Greenleaf to the snobs of Gosford Park, are confident that life is a game and certain they have won, leaving them blind to peril. Finley says, “These characters have done everything to protect themselves.”
Everything except be careful whom they invite in. When Lily welcomes a drug dealer, the ruffian savors every luxurious detail. In the garage he caresses a Ferrari. In the bathroom he sniffs the fancy soap. A person, he seems to be saying, would kill to live here.
If there’s a caution for parents watching what could be their own children making fatal decisions, Finley says, it’s “don’t spend all of your time in a tanning bed downstairs.” If you do, something horrible might happen. And wouldn’t that be wonderful?
This story appears in the March 2018 issue of Town & Country. Subscribe Today
