Review of We Need to Talk About Kevin (2011) by Victor T — 07 Mar 2015

Movies constantly use books or novels as source material which can go from an uplifting fantastic story to a hard and even depressive story and "We Need to Talk about Kevin" falls into that second category.

Eva Khatchadourian is the mother of two children, a son named Kevin and a daughter named Celia. While her relationship with Celia is normal, her relationship with Kevin is incredibly troublesome and dangerous since he was a baby. As the years pass, Kevin becomes more aggressive and dangerous thus Eva fears what he could do to her and the rest of the family.

After reading a synopsis like that you may wonder who would love such a depressive and disturbing story about the hatred between a mother and her son but there are a lot of greatly executed elements in Lynne Ramsay´s adaptation of Lionel Shriver´s novel. "We Need to Talk About Kevin" counts with mesmerizing acting with the best being Tilda Swinton providing a very expressive, emotional and extremely sympathetic performance in a pretty demanding and complex role; the story moves at a mostly solid pacing, the writing shows respect and dedication to its source material; while it may be a little difficult to get used to its editing style, it worked perfectly in the narrative; it has a lot of physiological themes; raises some interesting and disturbing questions, it will get a variety of emotions out of you, and it blends drama with a subtle but perfect horror dose that revolves around build up and payoff. But even with all those remarkable achievements, I have to admit that this is not film for everybody, especially those who love and uplifting and fun film, due to its story makes it a hard film to watch. I normally don't care if a film is dark, depressive or too realistic but I struggle at times with "We Need to Talk about Kevin" but I am more than glad that I endure because while it disturbs you at times it also provides a huge message and one of the best horror experiences I´ve had with a film from the new millennium.

"We Need to Talk About Kevin" is brutal film that is masterfully crafted and performed; it will definitely disturb you but still needs to be seen at least one time in order to get its message.