Review of We Need to Talk About Kevin (2011) by Dakotah G — 07 Oct 2012

You have to praise "We Need To Talk About Kevin" for not wanting to go down the creepy kid horror movie route that so many recent films have gone down. By not cheapening the subject matter to a series of jolts and creepy scares it allows the film to try to be a thought-provoking film about the source of evil. What would compel a teenager to commit a murderous act - seemingly unprovoked.

"Kevin"'s protagonist is his mother - Eva Khatchadourian, played with tense (perhaps too tense) intensity by Tilda Swinton. The story follows her struggle to exist in the town where the crimes were committed. Despised by her fellow townsfolk who either mistreat her, ignore her or simply gawk at her, Eva has to find a way to co-exist and spends most of the film, in a heavy-handed moment of symbolism, unsuccessfully scraping red paint off of her house. The film flashes back and forth between her present day where she attempts to reintroduce herself into this society in which she's unwelcome while visiting her son in jail with her past where the story of Kevin and his childhood unfolds.

And this is where the film's problems begin to manifest themselves. The film doesn't seem to know what it wants to say so at the end, it leaves you saying too many conflicting thoughts. Kevin is portrayed from birth as irrationally hateful towards Eva - so is his behavior genetic? Eva is shown to be bitter toward having to raise Kevin (while is seen to be a nurturing mother later to their daughter), so is his behavior learned? Or is Kevin just pure evil? One sequence has baby Kevin crying at a high-pitch for hours in a row with Eva but when Dad comes home the child is OK. How would a baby know to show such a lack of connection to his mother unless it was naturally inclined to be that way? And he also shows to be a highly intelligent toddler for no apparent reason knowing when to deceive one parent while showing his true colors to the other?

Tilda Swinton again proves to be an amazing actress, but her hard portrayal of Eva makes the character's moments of tenderness seem out of character and placed there just to balance out the character's flaws instead of just letting the flaws live.

"Kevin" had some really nice moments especially the ending which is extremely believable and thought-provoking, it's a shame that the film didn't take that conclusion and make the actions leading up to it consistent with a character who would utter those thoughts. That would have focused "Kevin", made it extremely provocative and thoughful, and would have cut back on the creepy horror film conventions that the film seemed to want to shun in the first place.