Review of We Need to Talk About Kevin (2011) by Marc E — 30 Mar 2014

I recorded this off Sky quite a few months ago and I was always waiting for the right moment to watch it given the films theme and contents. Channel 4 recently showed a documentary about psychopaths and this film was featured in it.

Experts deemed the performance to be very like that of a real psychopath and it made me even more reluctant to watch it. I finally watched it last night and initially thought it was a bit miss jointed and wondered if I had missed some of it.

The film is shown out of order with flash back and current intermixed. From a film making point of view it didn't look as good as films like The Fighter or American History X which would have added to the films bleak storyline, and playing up beat music like Buddy Holly further added to the confusion (I guess this was deliberate) Tilda Swinton's despair was portrayed very well and although Kevin's psychopathic tendencies for the most part are just mental, I remained tense throughout sensing something was going to happen.

The climax, although you never see it on screen is quite powerful.