Super spoiler ahead:
In the recent psychological thriller, The Killing of a Sacred Deer, a family of four (Steven, Anna, Kim, and Bob) are hauntingly terrorized by a young boy (Martin) who believes Steven killed his father years ago, through drunken negligence on the operating table.
THIS POST IS A MASSIVE SPOILER. Read with caution if you haven't seen the movie.
As we learn more about the characters and their motives, we learn that Martin has plotted a vengeful attempt at justice, akin to the story of Iphigenia in Greek Mythology. After Steven's son, then daughter, suddenly become paralyzed from the legs down, Martin outlines in detail the steps in which the two children and Anna (Steven's wife) will begin to progress until their deaths. Steven is forced to make the decision to deliberately kill one of the members of his family, as to save the lives of the others, within Martin's corrupt game of justice.
After planning for some time, Martin meets the family early in the movie. During this time, he delivers gifts to Anna, Kim, and Bob. Both Kim and Bob receive small key-chains, and Anna is given a bundle of roses as a gift. This was Martin's attempt to poison/inflict that first spark of disease to each of the members of the family through a biologic agent or other degenerative substance. There was a recurring set of chores throughout the movie in that Kim is to walk the dog, and Bob was to water/take care of the plants and flowers. This suggests that even though Anna was targeted with the roses, Bob was the one assigned to chores involving the roses/flowers/plants and was therefore exposed to the biologic substance to a greater extent than Anna or anyone else was.
It can be presumed that the two key-chains held the same substance and was administered in equal quantities to the children. The biologic agent or substance used was absolutely real, but very temporary and fleeting in its effects. Its effects impacted Bob first, he was brought into the hospital and underwent tests. By this time, Bob felt as though his agency had been stripped and even after the biologic agent had worn off, he felt powerless and confined to the circumstances he was in. At this time, the disease morphed into solely a psychosomatic disorder. Kim was impacted slightly later by the substance, experiencing the real symptoms of paralysis and lack of appetite, but after a short period of time (by the point where she got up and walked to the window to see Martin), the disease had morphed into entirely a psychosomatic disorder for her. There were never tests shown of Kim undergoing any form of medical scans, even with the possibility of the substance remaining in her system slightly longer than with Bob.
Despite Kim and Bob being in the hospital for some time, then later transported home, their setting did not change. They stayed in hospital beds in a room in the house that was not their own. They were never given the opportunity to reside in separate rooms or areas, and for that reason, their now psychosomatic disorders built off of one another. When grouped together, their situations would have continued to deteriorate because the two children believed they had the same medical issue and that their beliefs reinforced one-anothers'. Interestingly, while the key-chains held a substance in small amounts, the roses held a greater amount of the substance and were meant to inflict the wife the severest and deadliest ailment. The first portion of the movie surrounded Martin giving Steven the opportunity to take on the role of father-figure in his life, complicit in this desire with Martin's mother, but after Steven decided against this request, Martin moved on to his more devious plan. Poisoning Anna to the point of death, and offering a realistic solution to Steven's rebuttal of a relationship with Martin's mother (where he said "I'm happily married and have been so for x years.")
The severest of symptoms, the bleeding from the eyes, was not meant for Bob, and was meant to be solely inflicted upon Anna. But because she was not taking care of the flowers, Bob was exposed to the point of death. He was still impacted by a real symptom of paralysis and loss of appetite early on, but the disorder morphed into something psychosomatic, and an additional wave of real symptoms (the bleeding of the eyes) hit him much later, and was the only person in the family to experience this. Though it was alluded to that soon Kim and later Anna would have experienced this, Kim's disorder was then entirely psychosomatic because of the reinforcement by Bob, and Anna was never impacted by a substance to nearly any extent in the first place.
When Martin was locked up downstairs, and Anna came down to beg for his mercy, he recognized that Steven would soon be ultimately pushed into choosing to kill one of his family members. Once he was released, and disappeared from the house (not to be seen again until the diner at the end of the movie), he retrieved the key-chains from the childrens' downstairs room, as well as the roses, and left. Though this makes the most sense, earlier Kim had mentioned that her iPod was missing, stating "I don't know what's wrong with me. I've lost two iPods in 10 days." This could have been another opportunity to Martin to steal the key-chain, that was attached to the iPod among Kim's other things.
During the second to last scene, when Steven was forced to kill one of his family members and was spinning in circles, Bob was the only family member who had experienced a lethal dose of the biologic agent (to the point of making his eyes bleed, with a soon-to-follow death). If Steven had killed any other family member, Bob would have died anyway in the following days. After Bob's death, Kim's symptoms soon vanish and she returns to normal health, both because the reinforcing psychosomatic symptoms of her brother disappeared with her own, and that her key-chain was taken by Martin to limit potential exposure, or on the slight chance of his mild infatuation with her.
I believe this to be a correct reading of this element with the movie, The Killing of a Sacred Deer. Any thoughts?
