Movies Reviews

We Need to Talk About Kevin – Movie Review

By Anne Brodie Jan 13, 2012, 2:23 GMT

Based on the novel about a boy who goes on a killing spree two days before he turns 16. This leads his parents to question whether they are to blame for his actions. ...more

A mother raises a son who hates her.  He always has from infancy.  No explanations are given for this except we do learn that he doesn’t have anything physically wrong with him, no autism, ADD, he’s “perfectly normal”.  And yet he hates her with such incandescent fury.

In a child, this rage is alarming, it’s not just outburst it’s constant and irrefutable.  I think it’s because she lets the child run the household with his whims and spoiled demands but that’s not in the film and perhaps it doesn’t matter.

The child named Kevin (Ezra Miller) is adorable and angelic looking, but his hate is cold and hard.  When his father (John C. Reilly) is around, he turns on the sunshine and charm and gets what he wants.  His father doesn’t see that there is a problem and becomes suspicious of his wife’s complaints and motives.  Why would a child still in diapers hate her?

Tilda Swinton is Eva, the long suffering and deeply frightened mother of this monster child.  No one believes her claim that he is the way he is.  As he grows up, he gets worse, only adding cunning to his repertoire.  He torments his little sister, even though the suggestion that he’s jealous of her doesn’t warrant such reprisals.

Eva is a conundrum.  She is a free spirited young woman who travelled the world and did the brave things young seekers do.  There’s a prescient scene in which she’s awash in tomatoes in a traditional harvest celebration in rural Italy.  She’s covered in red tomato.  But now, she’s stuck in a domestic trap with this child and a husband who doesn’t have her back.  She can’t go anywhere. She is a prisoner ion her own life.

She is covered in red paint in other recurring scenes, scraping off red paint thrown on her house and car, the act of citizens who hate her.  Her son throws red paint all over her room of maps, destroying her only retreat from him.  She leaves it on the walls.  Soon, blood flows through her world.

Tilda Swinton is a uniquely gifted actor who completely dominates the screen.  Her androgynous, awkward look and haunted face were made for cinema.   To see this tower of strength (literally) reduced to what she becomes over the course of the movie is incredible, and yet, she’s gifted enough to do it. 

Miller, another haunted looking soul, is so ferocious in his performance that he gives her a run for her money. There is never light-heartedness or comic relief for him.  To have done this part and convinced us so thoroughly of his evil is a real accomplishment for this young actor.

No spoilers here, except to say that Kevin doesn’t get any better.   This is a tough movie to watch and it lingers for two reasons – his evil and Swinton’s transcendent work.

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35mm drama
Written by Lynne Ramsay, Rory Kinnear based on Lionel Shriver’s novel
Directed by Lynne Ramsay
Opens: Dec. 2
Runtime:
MPAA:
Country:  UK / US
Language: English