We Need To Talk About Kevin - Review by Philip Josse

We Need To Talk About Kevin is a british drama film directed by Lynne Ramsay adapted from the novel by Lionel Shriver, and starring Tilda Swinton and Ezra Miller. We Need To Talk About Kevin is about the relationship between a mother and her son, who has recently killed nine people in his school with a bow and arrow, and whith whom she has a distant, unloving relationship.

The cantral figure in the film is the relationship between Eva, and her son Kevin, Eva was a successful travel writer in New York, who had her own imprint and earned a lot of money, she meets a man named Franklin, and suddenly falls pregnant, despite not wanting a child or, really, a relationship with Franklin. Upon the birth of her child, Eva fails to connect with the child, Kevin screams constantly even as an infant, he resists toilet training, and rebuffs her feeble attempts at intimacy and maternal affection. She moves with Franklin to a house in the suburbs at his insistence. In the suburbs, Eva is unhappy and lost, and she lacks direction in her life. She is openly hostile towards to Kevin, telling him that she doesn't love him, and breaking his arm as she lashes out.

As Kevin grows up he becomes even more cold and malicious, as Eva has a daughter, looking for some love in her life, and Kevin reacts to his sister with jealousy, killing her pet hamster in the garbage disposal, and burning her eye with cleaning fluid, leaving her blind. Subsequently Kevin kills nine students at his school, and Eva is forced to loose her house, and she ends up living in a rundown house near the railway line, working in a travel agency, being openly shunned and abused by her neighbors, the film shows her trying to understand the reason behind Kevins actions, and whether this was her fault, or whether he was simply a bad seed.

The film is unequivocal in it's presentation of Eva's guilt, her house is at one point splashed with red paint, and we see Eva washing her hands after having cleaned it, rinsing the red paint off her hands like a murder washing the blood off their hands. Eva is openly abused and is at one point slapped by one of her neighbors, however she doesn't react, and she takes the abuse as if she deserves it. Red is omnisciently present in the film, the film opens with the food fight in valencia showing red splattering and people running, the murder scene is presented similarly to this, with the police lights giving the scene a garish glow. The color red is present mainly after the murder, reminding her constantly of the acts her son committed.

Environments are also very important in the film, the apartment into which Kevin is born is a very personal space, curated over time and filled with memorable trinkets. The house in the suburbs to which they move is in direct contrast, it is cold, uninviting  and impersonal. In the house both of the children have personal spaces which represent them, even Kevin, Eva's only attempt at a personal space is ruined by Kevin, who sprays it with black ink. The rest of the house has a clinical feel, lacking personality or feeling.

The performances in the film are superb, Tilda Swindon is magnificent, playing a woman who is wracked with guilt, who feels responsible for the abhorrent acts her son committed, and who accepts her punishment with an almost saintly penitence. Ezra Miller is also fantastic as Kevin, a sociopath who feels almost nothing, a psychopath who doesn't know why he killed those people, and who acts out of curiosity. The lack of chemistry between Swinton and Miller is incredible, and their performances are subtle and complex.

However We Need To Talk About Kevin raises more questions than it answers, and the film is ultimately more of an exploration than a decipherment. Nonetheless We Need To Talk About Kevin is a visually intriguing and beautifully acted drama. Rating: A-

Eva: Whenever I see fat people, they're always eating. Don't give me any of this... 'slow metabolism, it's my glands' crap.