Review of We Need to Talk About Kevin (2011) by Gavin S — 08 Aug 2012

I didn't really enjoy this film too much, but that's not to take away from Tilda Swinton's performance. She most likely deserved an Oscar nod for it, for doing so much visually with so little dialogue in places.

However, there is nothing shocking about this film, Tt's pretty apparent from the first 15 minutes that Eva (Swinton) never wanted a child, and she failed to discuss this with Franklin her husband (Reilly).

Failure to discuss things is the crux of the whole film; if Eva had actually cared enough she would have taken Kevin into counselling, however, she lets him manipulate her in all kinds of ways, with disastrous consequences.

This movie isn't a character study of Kevin, it's an examination of how not to communicate and how to avoid problems by hoping they'll just go away. A sad movie, but doesn't offer much in the way of insights, other than what NOT to do.

Watch if you're a Swinton fan, but really non-essential otherwise.