Review: We Need To Talk About Kevin

Director/Writer: Lynne Ramsay. Stars: Tilda Swinton, John C. Reilly, Ezra Miller. (2011)

It is not an easy subject to tackle, and one not thought of often. How do the parent(s) of a child responsible for a school massacre and murder deal and feel with what their child has done.  According to this film, they don’t even know.  All this makes for an emotional and at times uncomfortable film to watch, but powerful in the end.

The film focuses on Eva (Swinton) who in the aftermath walks around in a daze (in part prescription drug and alcohol induced) and struggles to make it day by day.  Her quiet suffering, mourning for those lost, combined with guilt for her part as the mother of Kevin, is a raw and honest performance by Swinton.   Honest as well for the non glamorous look at motherhood, through the flashbacks of Kevin’s childhood we see Eva struggle to connect and possibly even love her son.  The audience may not like what Eva does, how she feels or what she says, but at the same time, we do know where it all comes from and struggle along with her.  We can also feel anger at the way the small community treats her, as a monster herself, and Eva’s guilt allows it to continue and even believes she is the monster they tell her she is.  This is also seen in the punches of red (red paint, red blood, the La Tomatina tomato festival in Valencia, Spain) seen throughout the film, in an otherwise muted colour scheme.  We also get a sense of how disconnected and in a haze Eva is by the pacing of the film, along with the film’s soundtrack that at times is opposite to the emotions happening on screen.

Then there is the character of Kevin (Miller) who starts off a strange child and grows into an angry and vicious teenager. We do not find out why Kevin is the way he is, and this can make the climax that the film has been working towards of his violent act more horrifying and that these acts of violence may not always have a reason, or at least a satisfying one.   I have never seen actor Ezra Miller in anything before and his performance of Kevin as a teenager is chilling, and if Miller continues with these types of strong performances, he has the potential for a great career.

Although Eva attempts to talk to her husband Franklin (Reilly) about Kevin, I had to question why she never took Kevin on her own (kicking and screaming, if need be) to a therapist about his obvious emotional and mental issues that lead to his violent act(s).

The ending may not be liked by everyone, and I do not mind endings when everything is not answered or solved in a neat little package, at times they make the best endings of all and are more realistic. The final conversation between mother and son is no different and almost sad that it seems to be the closest they may ever be. The one aspect of the ending I wasn’t fond of was that there seems to be a last minute effort to sympathize with Kevin, when he answers his mother’s question of why he did what he did. Kevin answers with “I thought I did two years ago” when up until then there is so sign of guilt or remorse by Kevin.  It is still a powerful ending and film, with no clear answers and we can only assume that as Eva walks out of the prison, her haze, guilt and confusion will continue, and  the haunting mystery of the question... why.