Review of We Need to Talk About Kevin (2011) by Cheyenne L — 06 Sep 2012

We Need to Talk About Kevin is a polarizing film. How so? Some may walk out of the movie bored, while others will stay mesmerized in their seats. Polarizing to those who are engaged by dark, serious, intense subject matter, versus those who will be turned off. Dividing viewers into those who ultimately like the movie versus those who truly do not. Myself, I was thoroughly engrossed by WNTTAK. Why I didn't see this movie prior to the 2012 Oscars, I do not remember. For if I had, Tilda Swinton would have won my Best Actress nomination and golden statue, against the titan Meryl Street (for the deplorable The Iron Lady). Yes, Tilda Swinton is an odd "character" in real life (albino-esque, offbeat personality; questionmarkable sense of fashion). Yet watching her performance, spiralling into the black hole life of Eva Khatchadourian, is entrancing. All because of Kevin: The Omen, The Demon Seed, the clinically possessed child she brings into the world (alongside an oddly cast, even unbelievable John C Reilly of comedy flick genre). Kevin turns sanity and normalcy on it's head; thrashing Eva's life into a brutal game of "make me" as she attempts to raise him under traditional motherly parenting. We Need to Talk About Kevin taps into the overarching theme of nature versus nurture and where it goes wrong in child rearing. Why does Kevin not learn to talk and use the toilet like other kids his age? Why does Kevin go all Columbine at his high school? Why does Eva ultimately still LOVE and want to help him in the end? Throughout the two hour film - directed astutely, in full arthouse regalia including loads of facial close ups, by Lynne Ramsay - Tilda breaks, and crumbles her way through Eva's New Yorkan & publicized world traveller life to one of a despised social outcast . As the viewer, you will need to piece together life stages, events and timelines, as WNTTAK flashes back and forth between current day and those of past. However, Ramsay undertakes this style of direction (I think) because it forces us to live the fragile mental state & psychology of Eva as experienced by her. Feeling her hardships in trying to raise a problem child. Then having to retain her sanity dealing with the pubescent devastation Kevin inflicts. You wonder, "Why?" As retaliation? Because of a mental affliction? Personal vendetta against the nuclear world? A cry for attention? For help? A "mad man" mind-set to punisher the innocent? Who knows. In the end it still is left a mystery (maybe because there truly isn't a proven foundation for his madness). Which I was fine with. Why? Because of Tilda's hypnotizing acting & embodiment. Because of the unexplainable relevancy to real life public acts of violence last seen in the The Dark Night Rises Colorado mass shooting. Because of the believable evil rendered by all "Kevin" actors, especially Rock Duer (Kevin as a toddler).

This is one movie, based on a book, that was so entrancing I actually felt compelled to go out, get it and read it. The power We Need to Talk About Kevin elicits, riveting in all of its despair.