We Need to Talk About Kevin review

Eva: You don't look happy. 
Kevin: Have I ever? 

Director: Lynn Ramsey
(2011)

It isn't very often that a film sticks in my mind almost every moment after a watch it. But then again, not many films are like We Need to Talk about Kevin, a film which shows a troubled relationship between mother and borderline demonic son. Not that this is a supernatural horror film, WNTTAK is very much grounded in reality, something that makes it all the more horrifying.

 The film centers not on the demon child that is Kevin, but on his continually suffering mother, Eva (Tilda Swinton). Swinton is a tour de force here, playing a woman who hates her son, the child it seems she didn’t really want in the first place. She would much rather live in the city, but after husband Franklin (John C Reilly) persuades her persuades her it would be better for their son as he enters his first years of life, they move to the suburbs. The titular Kevin is played excellently in his teen years by Ezra Miller, and by Jasper Newell and Rock Duer in his childhood. The trio of these actors deliver something special here, performances that go beyond the bratty toddler/teenager stereotype. Seemingly wrong from birth, the purpose of his satanic behavior seems only to torture his mother. He destroys her room and paints over all her maps, masturbates with the bathroom door open and kills his adoring sister’s pet hamster. He is a horrible, horrible person, a deep resentment that we as an audience shares with Eva. These performances are what keeps the film riveting throughout, even when the plot grinds to a halt.

Flashbacks are put to excellent use in WNTTAK and the non linear narrative shows the aftermath of Kevin’s unspeakable actions, and chilling build up to them as well. This allows director Lynn Ramsey to finish the film brutally, with an ending that can very much be described as a bit of a downer. These flashbacks further amplify Swintons performance, the contrast between a woman dealing with the child she doesn’t love and the woman who’s life has been destroyed is astronomical, and Swintons catches all of the nuances needed to make this so.

For the most part, the films ambiguity works marvelously, with focus on the aftermath of Kevin’s incident, not the violence that caused it. But other aspects (how does eve lose her money? What happened to Celia’s eye? Why is Kevin the way he is?) Don’t give enough exposition for the viewer to search for answers. This leads to the films biggest flaw; why is Kevin the way he is? A child isn't born ‘wrong’, and he suffers no neglect or incident to turn him this way. An early scene shows the baby Kevin almost perpetually crying around Eva, but is fine around father Franklin. Are we to believe he is born evil making WNTTAK more of a horror film, or are we seeing things from the warped perspective of a grieving Eva (these scenes are flashbacks after all). It seems that everyone in the town hates Eva, something that can be deducted from the paint thrown on her car and the citizens that punch her in the face. These reactions are extreme, Kevin’s ‘incident’ has long since passed, it’s highly doubtful that Kevin’s mother be remembered for all of this time. Regardless, this is an example of We Need to Talk about Kevin at its worst; it asks questions that have no answers, instead of asking questions with answers that the audience has to search for.

Regardless of an abundance of empty questions and implausible plot points, we need to talk about Kevin is sublimely shot, a factor that adds to the gruesomeness of the films events. There’s no doubt, this is a cold, chilling piece of cinema, hard to stomach, but unmissable all the same. I would place it in the same category as Mystic River, a difficult, harrowing watch, but one that must be seen all the same.

7