LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Comedy-thriller "Thoroughbreds" may star two relative newcomers and an unknown director but it arrives in U.S. movie theaters on Friday to the kind of reviews enjoyed by veterans.
The independent movie stars British-raised actresses Anya Taylor-Joy and Olivia Cooke as upper-class teenage girls in suburban Connecticut who rekindle a childhood friendship after years of growing apart.
"Thoroughbreds" was originally a play written by first time feature film director Cory Finley.
After reading the script, Cooke said, "I thought he was a woman because I've never read characters so good and fleshed out."
Taylor-Joy, 21, had a break-out performance in 2015 horror film "The Witch," while Cooke, 24, will next appear in Steven Spielberg's upcoming sci-fi adventure "Ready Player One."
The film also marks the final performance by American actor Anton Yelchin, who died in a 2016 accident in Los Angeles. He plays Tim, a hapless drug dealer whom the girls blackmail into becoming a hitman.
The movie, first seen at the Sundance film festival, got an 89 percent approval rating on review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes.
Variety called director and writer Finley "astonishingly gifted" while the Daily Beast said the film was "terribly funny, wild as a hell and aggressively grotesque."
(Reporting by Rollo Ross; Editing by Sandra Maler)
