Psycho Killer

   

We Need to Talk about Kevin (2011): 

A frighteningly real account of raising a sociopath

The brilliant and chilling We Need to Talk about Kevin was the uncontested movie highlight of the past few weeks, reviewed on Don't Touch the Watch as follows:

Director: Lynne Ramsay

Writers: Lynne Ramsay (screenplay), Rory Kinnear (screenplay)

Stars: Tilda Swinton, John C. Reilly and Ezra Miller

From the arresting, red-splashed opening slow motion sequence at la Tomatina in Spain, to the final white fadeout, We Need to Talk about Kevin is an unbearably tense masterclass in film-making.

 
Based on the 2003 bestselling novel by Lionel Shriver, the book unfolds through a series of letters between Eva and her estranged husband. Using the letters, Eva confesses a number of worrying incidents that took place between she and her son Kevin. These culminate in his sixteenth year, during which he commits an unprovoked massacre at his high school.

  

In adapting the novel, director Lynne Ramsay focuses primarily on Eva (Tilda Swinton) as she tries to rebuild her life following the murders, while living in the same small town filled with the parents of victims murdered by Kevin. Told through a series of broken time-lines, we see Eva searching her past in the hope of explaining Kevin’s behaviour, even to the point of wondering if some of her actions shaped the emotionless killer he became.

Only the third feature by director Lynne Ramsay (Rat Catcher), here she deftly avoids every trap that has so far befallen these grief-stained stories. She also wisely sidesteps the emotionally static take on the high school massacres, as seen in Elephant, and the verbose ranting by Michael Moore in Bowling for Columbine.

Instead, Ramsey examines the affect of parenthood on both child and mother, raising a barrage of ethical and moral questions, in particular: 'Could your distaste for the constraints of motherhood birth something truly rotten and twisted?'

 

Tasked with bringing the complex Eva to the screen is Tilda Swinton, who is simply mesmerising as a woman turned from globetrotting free-spirit into the haunted shell that we see throughout the movie. As for the portrayal of Kevin, I felt the child incarnation was verging a little too much on horror movie territory. The character just seemed a little too cold and detached, rather than simply suffering from uncorrected behavioural problems.

Take, for example, the scene where Eva and Kevin are playing ball, I half expected to hear the music from The Omen to kick in, as his face contorted into a menacing sneer. This is only a slight gripe, as the older Kevin, played by Ezra Miller, brings a far more authentic sarcastic menace to the role.

 

Overall, a beguiling, sonically rich tale of emotional and physical breakdown between mother and son that ends with a terrifying, murderous tragedy. We Need to Talk about Kevin is an instant classic, and easily one of the films of the year.

Sum it up: The movie digs beneath the blood-splattered surface of the current wave of high school massacres that have shaken the American system, to find the real rotting truth.

Rating: 5 Stars