Wow. We Need to Talk About Kevin is not a movie for everyone. It’s a movie that most people I know could not get through. This movie aimed to educate and encourage discussion about a topic that feels like it is becoming all too familiar. It’s hard to target an audience for this movie. It has two things going against it that might turn viewers within the first 15 minutes or at any point after that. The first and more important one is the topic. This movie tells the story of a mother whose 16-year-old son is in prison after having murdered many of his classmates in a mass killing that resembles the Columbine High School massacre. There will be a large number of people who will not even consider watching a movie based on a topic like this. The second, and far less important, reason, why people might struggle to make it to the end is because of its, at times, randomness. It goes back and forth between the present and past and between real and imagined life. The transitions are inconsistent. If you’ve seen either Melancholia or The Tree of Life, it sometimes has that sort of feel. I liked Melancholia and hated every second of The Tree of Life. However, I gave. We Need to Talk About Kevin a chance. It held my attention for the entire movie.
The talented Tilda Swinton (Michael Clayton, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button) stars in Lynne Ramsey’s (Morvern Callar, Ratcatcher) adaptation of a Lionel Shriver novel of the same name. Swinton is Eva, the first-time mother of Kevin and the wife of Franklin (John C. Reilly – Step Brothers, Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story). She is not a bad person and does seem to care as a mother. However, we learn very early on that she is unhappy, perhaps because she has a boy she does not want. We see a very despondent Eva, not even wanting to look at, let alone hold her, baby as she sits in a hospital bed after Kevin’s birth. Franklin, meanwhile, is fixated on the new bundle of joy.
The movie’s focus is the relationship, or lack thereof, between Eva and Kevin. In this movie, three actors effectively portray Kevin in three different time frames. First, we see Kevin as a baby/toddler. Then we see Kevin as a 7-year-old child. Finally, we see Kevin as a teenager. All three actors do a truly fantastic job of playing the defiant and cold-hearted hellion. Even from an early age, we see Kevin as a disturbed individual. He refuses to be toilet trained, going as far as to purposely soil his diaper just after he has been changed to anger his mother. Kevin is dark and disturbed. Even as a toddler, we are fearful of him. He’s not like any toddler you’ve ever seen before. Kevin is very intelligent. He learns very early in his life how to completely manipulate his mother.
In the present, Eva is a zombie. Her son has committed this heinous act, and she struggles with how much blame she should put on herself. She feels the entire community staring at her and wishing harm on her. Ramsey does a great job of chronicling the relationship between mother and son. I imagine it must have been difficult editing this movie and deciding which interactions between Eva and Kevin she should keep and which ones to discard. When Eva took Kevin to the doctor as a baby, she was almost disappointed when she was told there was nothing wrong with him. Eva worked hard with Kevin, but her successes with him were tiny compared to what she had hoped for. As Kevin ages in this movie, we get the sense that Eva continues to love him and work on developing a better relationship with him, but she isn’t trying as hard as she can because she isn’t getting the desired results. Should Eva have known that her son had been plotting a mass murder for weeks, months, if not years ahead of time? Who is really to say? However, I would imagine that even the most loving and communicative parent feels some sense of guilt whenever his/her son or daughter does something so terrible.
This is a thought-provoking film. It is one that you won’t be able to let go of very easily after its watch. Parents of children Kevin’s age or under might reexamine how they talk to and about their children. If there are warning signs, are they discussed? If you are worried about your son or daughter, but they say they are fine, do you press the issue? You’ll ask yourself these and many other questions during and after you watch this movie.
Plot 9/10
Character Development 9.5/10
Character Chemistry 9/10
Acting 10/10
Screenplay 8/10
Directing 9/10
Cinematography 8/10
Sound 8/10
Hook and Reel 7.5/10
Universal Relevance 10/10
88%
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