We Need to Talk About Kevin (2011)

By Saša Avramović

This film directed by Lynne Ramsay (Ratcatcher) was greeted mostly with standing ovations from audiences and praise from the critics at the festivals where it was shown. It is mostly better than the products usually served at similar events, but not so much to call it a masterpiece - the word that many rushed to use while describing it. On the contrary, it's far from that.
The film follows Eva (Tilda Swinton), the mother of Kevin (played by Ezra Miller, Jasper Newell, and Rocky Duer in various stages of his life) who has committed a terrible crime and is now in jail. The film follows her struggle with inner demons and relations with the outside world, as her recollections of her former family life when she was trying to establish a normal relationship with an impossible child.
Another in a series of films about evil children, 'We Need to Talk About Kevin' tries to be anti-thriller, drama, and horror at the same time and to say some important things about the problems of the modern world, in this case about mass murders in schools of the United States. It doesn't fully succeed in any of the self-assigned tasks. When it comes to the thriller aspect, the entire film is set as an anti-thriller. Very soon after the beginning of the film the future of the main characters is revealed, the tragedy has already happened and the perpetrator is known. We see the flashes and the scenes in which survivors of the tragedy appear. That's a valid method but it doesn't work here because of the mild treatment from the director. The main function of that anti-thriller frame was to bring us closer to the characters, to both the victims and the ones responsible for the tragedy, to their drama and life. Sadly, the film failed in that area. We don't fully believe it, most of it isn't convincing at all and it doesn't bring us closer to the characters.

Here the director asks some simple, but (some would say) important questions: was Kevin born bad, was it all about the family influence, or perhaps both? The fact is that the mother was not happy because of the birth of a child. All that translates to Kevin during an early age and he uses every opportunity to turn her life into hell. The director settles for the option - born bad, and the environment made him even worse. So, he is set on the wrong track from the very beginning, and the behavior of his mother in the beginning (and later his father, but in a different way) form his personality. Kevin is evil and a manipulator. Even when it seems that he established a normal relationship with his mother, the next event shows us that it was only an illusion, and part of his game. He behaves completely differently around his father (John C. Reilly, in a very weak role) and the father does not believe his mother when she blames Kevin for various violent acts - he kills his sister's hamster, and in the end, blinds his sister in one eye. This part of the film has a big problem because the director decided to present the characters and their relationships in black and white manner. In essence, the most problematic thing is the way Kevin's eeeeevillll is represented, the claim that he is the main cause of all problems, and the way his family responds to his acts. Without going now into the ideological and moral implications of this deeply disgusting perpetual blaming of the children as the root of all problems (a very common thing in cinema), let's try to play by the director's rules (with an emphasis on "try"). Relations between the characters are very simplified and subordinated to the director's intentions. Father always acts confused, is not aware of Kevin's actions, and always complies with him. If Kevin is evil, then his mother is always nice to him, even though at first she did not want to have a child. She always attempts to get over all his wrongdoings. But it seems that Kevin doesn't believe in her love, he is convinced that deep down she hates him. In one scene, when he intentionally dirties his diapers (he wears diapers only to annoy his parents, not because he needs them) she angrily pushes him and he breaks his arm. Before this flashback, in prison, in a scene set in the present, he says to his mother that this action of hers is the only honest thing she had ever done to him. Kevin is wrong because she immediately shows remorse for her action and stays with him until his arm is healed. That much proof of his hatred toward his mother is unnecessary. The director does everything so that we as viewers feel uncomfortable because of Kevin's actions, but I felt uncomfortable mostly because of the way Kevin's acts were represented, and most of it is completely unnecessary. It's pure grotesque, and a simplified quasi-psychological portrait of the genesis of the main problem.

The director also wanted to play with a horror genre in this film, but it's not functioning, again largely connected with the previously described problems of the weak writing and the portrayal of the characters and because of the director's lack of understanding of the possibilities of the genre. Kevin's actions as a child are not truly creepy nor were directed in a horror key, and in the end, everything becomes pure exaggeration and almost funny in its failed seriousness (I can imagine how the actors who play little Kevin were directed: "Okay, now lower your brows and look evil!"). In the beginning, there are a few interesting scenes. The scene of the bathing in tomato juice in the crowd is effective because it shows Eva's current freedom with hints of future events. There is a partially effective scene of childbirth, during which we see only Eva's horrifying reflection in the mirror, then after giving birth we see her in a catatonic state in the bed with her husband holding the baby. In the scenes taking place in the present, the director is satisfied with the repetition of actions that should leave an unpleasant and uneasy impression on the audience, and this applies in particular to the scenes of Eva's attempts to cope with the new situation after Kevin's crimes - Tilda Swinton is excellent in some scenes, but in multiple scenes, she slips into pathetic - this part of the film is unconvincing because it should be shorter and less repetitive. Eva is constantly taking off red paint thrown onto her house (okay, you made your point, we understand the symbolism and we don't need to see the color red in every single scene of the film). The director wanted to make sure that we see Eva's character as a victim too, and she made that point aggressively. Eva accepts insults and slaps on the street without question and moves on. The almost identical scenes showing her loneliness begin to annoy her after many repetitions. In fact, in this film, there is no real human drama or horror, only at moments some effective scenes, with a lot more redundant ones. The director wants to show us the victims of the tragedy and their suffering, but there are not many of these scenes. The crime that Kevin commits is shown in a way that Kevin sees it as the fulfillment of some kind of messianic fantasy, but the scene remains sketchy and incomplete. When it comes to the actors who play Kevin, the best one is Ezra Miller as Kevin the teenager, who occasionally manages to show a tangible threat. Tilda Swinton is an excellent actress but she didn't impress me much here, she is mostly playing the same flat type of character and going with the flow of the script.

The film doesn't say anything new and important about these horrific crimes. As a study of the relationship between parents and children, the film is weak and one-dimensional. Also, it doesn't say anything new about human rights and choices in life. Eva at first does not want a child, then she changes and struggles with the problems, but it is all shown in a black-and-white manner and the end, leaves us almost cold. The very end of the film is effective but does not help much with the overall impression.