So, you kind of draw from that, but then, you also think about just putting yourself in that position too. The story revolves around a family of four, but the main focus is on the relationship between the mother (Eva, played by Tilda Swinton) and the son (Kevin, played by Rock River, Jasper Newell and Ezra Miller). The result is that Franklin completely deprives Kevin of proper care - not only mental healthcare, but any other kind of care. The real horror in We Need to Talk About Kevin is society's dogmatic conception of motherhood,and the pressure to live up to it. Kevin abused his mother because she developed a relationship with him where he could have honest interactions with her if he did. Years later, the birth of her daughter Celia, on the other hand, feels more festive. For the first portion of the film, the leaps back and forth in time caused needless confusion. Like a fluke, nothing to do with her personality or her hubby's personality? You've got Braveheart, which it kind of has a similar feeling to. Will she continue living in their hometown, where she's harassed by locals who blame her for the deaths? The story goes back to the past to recreate the events that led Eva to her present discontent. The truth to motherhood is a harsh one. He completely denies the reality of Kevin's personality and identity, and thus any agency over their relationship. However, she created a pattern whereby she only expresses herself to Kevin through disgust and fear. edition that "We Need to Talk About Kevin" asks an explicit question, "Yet I hope that this question is no more resolved in the book than crude oppositions like 'nature vs. nurture' are ever reconciled in real life.". None of this is done in a straightforward fashion. Based on Lionel Shriver's 2003 bestseller of the same name, Lynne Ramsay's 2011 film explores a broken family, mental illness, and the aftermath of a tragedy. Hosted by Michael Barbaro and Sabrina . But Kevin is just getting started, and his final act will be beyond anything anyone imagined. Haunted by the past, Eva's memories are triggered by sounds, objects and everyday minutiae. Kevin chooses to conceal the incident from Franklin. Don't comment just to troll/provoke. The mistake would be to take the film apart and try to reconnect the pieces in chronological order. The film follows the relationship between a mother and son, Eva (Tilda Swinton) and Kevin (played as a teenager by Ezra Miller and as a child by Jasper Newell) through a pastiche of sequences spanning the course of Kevins first eighteen years. I watched this film several years ago and decided today I'd watch it again as I really enjoyed it the first time round! Like Lady Macbeth, she tries to scrub the guilt off her hands. She mentions that she believes he'll be released in five years. This cycle is beautifully written and acted by Swinton, so much that you can't help but empathize with her despite her own assurances that every drop of blood her son ever spilt is on her hands, an image weaved throughout the movie. We cling to guidelines like the length of Tilda Swinton 's hair to figure out where we are. We see it in the wall of canned tomatoes that play backdrop to Evas anxiety attack in a supermarket, and the Cabernets she drowns her sorrows with. Eva believes that some defect of maternal affection had something to do with Kevin's development. Also read:Author Lionel Shriver on her early writing, politics, essential reading list and persevering out of 'sheer spite'. Little Kevin cries relentlessly, and Eva often uses cruel methods to shut him up. See movies like "The innocents" (1961, Jack Clayton) (pay attention to the title) and "The omen" (1976, Richard Donner). I have the feeling that this film, by entering Eva's mind, sees only what has been battering her down for 16 years. Kevin does not play ball, and he becomes increasingly manipulative. Still, the film should not be overshadowed by its leads performance, as is often the case with female Oscar nominees. With his shaggy hair buzzed off and scars covering his pale face, Kevin avoids her eyes and replies, "I used to think I knew. Near the top of the list of the worst movies to watch on Mother's Day is "We Need to Talk About Kevin." We Need to Talk About Kevin is a 2003 novel by Lionel Shriver. In a fit of rage at Kevin's soiling his diapers (at 7), Eva throws him down and breaks his arm. Jake Martin, visit our special Oscars season blog, Movie Minister. This is not entirely his fault. Swinton told me of a line in the script that wasn't used, wisely, I believe. As Robin Hood, little Kevin appears in a similar-looking shirt. Kevin, it seems, has a method to his madness. This model of motherhood so deeply rooted as it is in the biological doesnt leave much room for aberration, such that any rejection by the child becomes an indictment of the mothers entire existence. I mean, there's no room for the leader of the rebellion to give up. So I am thinking, was he born evil from the very beginning and she knew it and treated him alike evil from the very beginning? But the two most significant and poignant moments are found at the end of the film, when the 18-year-old Kevin, two years into a prison sentence for a heinous incident at his high school (yes, its as bad as you think), responds to his mothers query as to why he did what he did. You tell me." It is true that there is nothing unusual about giving birth to children in order . Her public perception is unlikely to change, but Eva appears firm in her choice to stick around for Kevin's sake. It's so convincing that it has the opposite effect on us, convincing us of her innocence and her son's innate evil - how could someone so pitiful, so sorrowful, so emotionally sensitive be responsible for the development of a totally psychopathic mind? From here he becomes a sociopathic teen with a rather keen interest in archery. Eva rushes to the school to see Kevin getting arrested. Sometimes Zuzu's petals are all you have to hold onto. And of course from there, we learn he perpetrates a mass killing at a school. Her husband Franklin (John C. Reilly) dismisses her concerns and uproots their bustling city life for a quiet home in the suburbs. Is she channeling the brief moment of affection between the two when he was young and sick, or is she working toward being a better mother upon his release? He grows into a spiteful toddler, refusing to say "mommy" and egging on her frustrations. Any spoilers should be placed in spoiler tags as such. It was definitely a challenge to play the straight character to these guys, but it was also kind of like, okay, this is my role. Catherine George managed the costume department impeccably well, with a slight touch of retro. Did your prior experience help prepare you for some of what to expect on Quantumania? By contrast with Elephant's oddly diffident lyricism, We Need To Talk About Kevin's expressionistic naturalism has a roiling, post-traumatic nonlinearity. Likewise, don't respond to trollish comments; just report them and ignore them. The light outside disappears. We learn that Kevin was a difficult, colicky baby, who grew up to be a difficult, problematic child who seemingly refuses to toilet train, despite a rather surprising vocabulary. Stripping the screenplay off words, the disturbance arises from a seamless amalgamation of image and sound. Author Lionel Shriver on her early writing, politics, essential reading list and persevering out of 'sheer spite'. I think Jentorra felt a little betrayed by her, and there was no real reconciliation with them at the end. A demon seed. The film explores and identifies the hope to be found in the ashes of Ground Zero and in the wake of Columbine while never once attempting to sugarcoat the real darkness and danger that exist in our world. For more information, please see our Eva takes incessant trips down memory lane to cope with her past loss. When his father is around, Kevin behaves like a charming and enthusiastic kid. So, I think it'd be really, really cool to see if they came up with something else. The sound of him savouring the juicy fruit a fruit he doesn't even like in deliberate crunches of sinister delight becomes unsettling when paired with the thought of Celia's lost eye. About Press Copyright Contact us Creators Advertise Developers Terms Privacy Policy & Safety How YouTube works Test new features Press Copyright Contact us Creators . What is lupus, an autoimmune disease diagnosed in Selena Gomez causing her weight gain? She has a career as a writer put on hold, while her husband Franklin (O'Reilly, at his most oblivious) carries on. What kind of a kitchen has empty counters? His son is who Franklin says he is, and anything else is just invisible. By provoking her, Kevin is able to get some precious emotional honesty out of her. Updated Date: Between the ages of 6 and 8 years old, played by Jasper Newell, he is a clever little monster who glares at Eva hurtfully, soils his pants deliberately and drives her into such a fury that she breaks his arm. ", Did Kevin internalize her hatred of him, or is she just feeding into his innate instability? It's hard not to see some of Eva's frustration at her changed lifethey leave the city and she is left with most of the child careas manifesting in a kind of resentment of Kevin. BBC Films To rate, slide your finger across the stars from left to right. Eva has spent the events of the film in deep introspection, coming to terms with the fact that she was an abusive mother, and at least some of what happened grew out of that. GameStop Moderna Pfizer Johnson & Johnson AstraZeneca Walgreens Best Buy Novavax SpaceX Tesla. Swinton said as much in an interview, Its about her fears and the horror of what she knows about herselfusing him as a kind of projection of her own self-loathing. Reddit and its partners use cookies and similar technologies to provide you with a better experience. Does their parental neglect make them culpable for the lives he took? Franklin himself lives in a state of demented decency, deceiving himself that his family are living acceptable lives. And the whole thought was just to fight and keep fighting? In the next sequence, he appears in a loose white shirt. The film opens to the sounds of sprinklers tch-tch-ing, before the first shot reveals a half-open patio door whose curtains are wafting with the wind. He was exactly right. Her emotional state doesnt change even when Kevin is born. We Need to Talk about Kevin in fact needs to be talked about, as what it is attempting to do by marrying the darkest, most nihilistic components of contemporary cinema with a redemptive message is groundbreaking. So, his dressing sense is perhaps not an indictment of his bitterness. Kevin's mother struggles to love her strange child, despite the increasingly dangerous things he says and does as he grows up. Genres: Psychological Drama, Family Drama. So what about Franklin? Swinton is collecting a bevy of early plaudits and nominations, as well she should. For much of the film, she lives with her husband, son and daughter in an expensive suburban home, and when we realize they've lived there for several years, we begin to wonder, how can four people occupy a home for over a decade and not accumulate anything? We Need to Talk About Kevin is already playing in NYC; it opens today in LA, Chicago, Houston and Phoenix and is rolling out nationwide. Cookie Notice The film loops in time, proceeding mostly chronologically, with some dips forward and backward. Eva's elation is reflected in the room's warm yellows and flowers on the bedside table. We Need to Talk About Kevin: Directed by Lynne Ramsay. Kevin replies that he thought he knew why but now hes not sure anymore. With Franklin there is no conflict. KATY: Yeah, I mean, this obviously had the difference between TV and movie. We see it perfectly after he blinds Celia - Eva attempts to confront him about what he's done, and he sits chewing a water chestnut to impress the image of plucking out an eye on Eva, just to watch the horror on her face. As Kevin develops, he refuses to be potty-trained, mocks Eva and rejects her attempts at physical affection. She sits in a blank daze in the hospital room. Alec Baldwin has been charged in the southwest state of New Mexico for manslaughter and faces an 18-month prison sentence, as does the film's armourer Hannah Gutierrez-Reed. The two embrace, and then she walks away. When Eva gets pregnant for the second time, Kevin feels that he has become estranged from the family and grows jealous. The real horror in the movie is society's dogmatic conception of motherhood, and the pressure to live up to it. Shriver welcomes the sharply divided interpretations, writing in the Harper Perennial P.S. It's no secret that We Need to Talk about Kevin is intended to challenge your assumptions about the people we think of as "evil." Privacy Policy. Jake Martin, SJ, is a Jesuit priest, comedian and writer. At first glance, it would seem that Kevin is yet another installment in the pantheon of post-modern films intent upon assaulting the human desire to give meaning to the world. This in turn completely undermines the husband/wife dynamic. He seems to recognize that he has some advantage over her. The brooding tone of the narrative prepares the audience for a devastating ending, but in hindsight, some of you may have seen it coming. She isn't even really at the center of it; that position is occupied by her son, Kevin, who is an instinctive sadist with a gift for knowing exactly how to wound her, reject her, deceive her and make her soul bleed. ROHAN: Since Jentorra and most of her freedom fighters make it out alive, have you heard anything about coming back for more Quantum Realm adventures down the line? Written by Julia Wolf. By. Before the film opens, the character referred to in the title of Lynne Ramsay's We Need to Talk About Kevin, at the age of 15, has massacred a number of his fellow schoolmates. See production, box office & company info. Kevin examines both our darkest moments and those slivers of Grace that sustain us. Helmed by Scottish filmmaker Lynne Ramsay based on the Orange Prize-winning eponymous 2003 novel by Lionel Shriver, 'We Need to Talk About Kevin' is a jarring, erratic, and sometimes profoundly disturbing 2011 psychological thriller that creates an uncanny place in the viewer's mind. The film ends with the emotionally blank mother visiting her son on the second anniversary of his crimes, just before he's transferred to an adult prison. Who's there when Kevin gets sick? For full Oscars coverage and commentary by its reviewer, Fr. And as serial killers are often tagged as psychopaths, we assume that the menacing nature of Kevin is dormant in him at birth. Rated R Annie Graham in Hereditary is conflicted by feelings of love and hate, resentment and remorse, towards her son. His attitude towards his son is warmer, but underneath there's no more depth than there is with Eva. Powered by WordPress.com VIP. It suffers from an excess of clunky foreshadowing and there's very little I find believable about the characters' actions. His attitude towards his son is warmer, but underneath there's no more depth than there is with Eva. Watch Indie Spirit Stars Suggest Indie Gems You Must Watch Right Now. It is a world where any attempts to offer a message of mercy, conversion and redemption must be done deftly and authentically, because at the end of the day, sometimes the community won't rally around you and more often than not Mr. Potter carries the day. 1 'Gonjiam: Haunted Asylum' (2018) Image via Showbox. Maternal ambivalence turns into filial antagonism, colouring her perception of him as inherently evil. All the community rules apply here. Going on, she again asks the question of responsibility and says, "I don't know. The point here is not to understand Kevin at all. So we must find our Grace in the minuscule, and it is in these brief moments of consolation, these shafts of light under the door, that Kevin provides the deft sucker punch to the, by now, standard narrative benchmarks of despair, emptiness and futility which permeate contemporary film. The past and present intertwine as Eva recalls Kevins formative years from childhood to adolescence, hoping for clues on what went wrong. Her body can't absorb more punishment. Was he acting out to punish Eva? Franklin and Kevin have no special connections like that, and Franklin appropriates Eva's so that he can have something manly to do with his son. Little matters like washing blood red paint off the windows of her diminished home that angry residents have vandalized, become rituals of self-abnegation and penance. Ambivalent toward motherhood, Eva struggles to care about her increasingly cruel son, Kevin (Ezra Miller). It'd be so much fun. The name itself Eva is not chosen by chance, echoing the fatally disobedient woman of the Bible, whose act determined the loss of the Garden of Eden. ComicBookMovie.com is a registered trademark and has been officially registered with the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). Kevin predominantly shows signs of antisocial personality disorder, and when it is left unnoticed by his parents, Kevins condition takes a wrong turn. Crypto Those trucks have the new UPS logo, where if the time-frame is correct, the trucks would have had the old logo of a stringed parcel above the UPS Shield. She asks Kevin why he didn't kill her. Meanwhile, Kevin is planning something that would shatter Evas world forever. She finally gets her excuse to abandon Kevin but doesn't act on it. 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