UK/USA
4*
Director:
Lynne Ramsay
Screenwriters:
Lynne Ramsay
Rory Stewart Kinnear
Director of Photography:
Seamus McGarvey
Running time: 112 minutes
Young Kevin (Ezra Miller) is a monster. From the moment he is born until the night he is arrested at school, a creepy, stomach-turning malice is palpable, and at various points, the viewer will rightly wonder whether the film might unfold as an adaptation of The Omen.
We Need to Talk About Kevin is a film about the effect a child’s killing rampage at his school has on his parents, but compared with other films like Beautiful Boy, Gus van Sant’s Elephant or the astonishing The Class (Klass) from Estonia, the focus here is purely on the mother and her very traumatic recollection of her son’s childhood.
The film does not pretend to be interested in the reasons behind Kevin’s actions, and this is an important point to keep in mind. Whether we eventually get any kind of explanation or motivation is quite beside the point — the point being an examination of his mother Eva’s (Tilda Swinton) struggle to make peace with the events of the past 18 years that culminated in the deaths of many innocent children, at the hands of her own flesh and blood.
But this does not mean the film is indifferent toward Kevin’s psychology. It is made evident that Kevin was an unwanted baby and that Eva did not plan on being a mother. It is impossible to tell whether the film assigns the blame to her for Kevin’s unstable character, but we do get a sense she is not blameless and may even be responsible for his ultimate breakdown.
The glimpses we get are all presented as wholly subjective impressions, and perhaps for the first time since Nicolas Roeg’s Don’t Look Now, we are made aware of the colour red in almost every single scene. But unlike Roeg’s film, which was an effective exercise in making a stylized thriller, We Need to Talk About Kevin uses red as a way to visibly stain the memories of the main character. Such visual intelligence is rarely seen on the big screen.
It is also to the screenplay’s credit that Eva is at the centre of events since this is the only way for the film to present her son and his actions as perplexing without testing our patience and our desire for rational motivation. Kevin has no sense of shame and fearlessly humiliates his mother, who tries to rationalize his behaviour and refuses to discipline him. Often, Eva’s sense of culpability makes her blame herself for the petulance displayed by her son, who forever remains a stranger to her.
Eva’s emotional turmoil, her angst and her frustration at always being the victim are staged very competently, though the constant staring of the people she passes in her small town does become more than a little irritating.
Kevin is not a likeable boy, nor does he reveal any sense of a moral compass. He is allowed to be passive-aggressive throughout his entire childhood and always gets away with this kind of behaviour, perhaps because his family seems to be isolated from the rest of society. Though neither of his parents is particularly quick-witted, Kevin somehow manages to be a genius at social manipulation, and his dark side will send shivers down the spine of any adult viewer. But even if we accept him as just a loose cannon, this aspect of his character comes across as contrived.
With its focus on Eva’s ostracism in society and her stoic acceptance that the days ahead will be as gloomy as the days behind her, We Need to Talk About Kevin is likely to elicit a sense of frustration at this remarkably passive character who never fights against the injustices committed against her and who often remains quiet about her sense of helplessness.
A film about a child who is born unwanted and finally takes his revenge by mowing down his classmates is certainly one way to promote a pro-choice message, one I have no qualms with, but the radical characterization of Kevin as being something close to the Antichrist does not help the cause.
Though far from brilliant, We Need to Talk About Kevin is a potent and haunting depiction of a mother’s conflicted response to being rejected by her own son, made by a filmmaker clearly in control of her craft.
This is a slightly modified version of the writer’s review that first appeared in The Prague Post.