We Need to Talk About Kevin: Merry Christmas no ho ho [MOVIE REVIEW]

Tilda Swinton stars in We Need to Talk About Kevin

Tilda Swinton stars in We Need to Talk About Kevin

We Need to Talk About Kevin is the stocking of coal hanging at the chimney on Christmas morning. It’s high class, multi-faceted coal, but coal nonetheless and is sure to darken the holiday mood, a darkness that is enhanced by cinematographer Seamus McGarvey’s dark palette.

Briefly, for the story is brief, Eva, happily married to Franklin, gives birth to Kevin. But there is something wrong with Kevin, something seen and felt by Eva and no one else. And it only gets worse and more difficult to pinpoint as Kevin grows into adolescence because he cleverly disguises his darkest inclinations in a charm and intelligence reserved for everyone but his mother.

Exploring the mother/son relationship is not a new topic. Certainly Freud spent a great deal of time researching and writing about it, leaving the rest of us to agonize over it. Under the best of circumstances it’s a very complicated dynamic. But what if the child is a sociopath? What if that all important maternal bond cannot be made despite all efforts by the mother? What if that bond is manipulated, almost from birth, by a child determined to control his mother, solidifying that attachment with an apocalyptic plan that will tie her inexorably to him? This complicated, horrific and perverse Oedipal relationship is the basis of We Need to Talk About Kevin, directed by Lynne Ramsay, written by Ramsay and her husband Rory Stewart Kinnear and based on the book by Lionel Shriver

Ramsay, another adherent of the philosophy that a story should have a beginning, middle and end but not necessarily in that order, creates an ever-escalating feeling of tension in several ways. Certainly there is Eva’s inability to calm her infant son or find any willingness on his part to bond meaningfully with her as he grows into an adolescence that is disquieting. To the contrary, it would appear that every move he makes is to further isolate her from him and from the rest of the family as he shares only his most anti-social behavior with her in what we will come to understand as his true nature. But most importantly, Ramsay cuts back and forth from the present, the beginning of Eva’s motherhood, back further to her marriage, forward to the moment before the apocalyptic reckoning, back to Kevin’s early childhood, and so on. The disorientation that is brought about by this kind of time shifting heightens the tension and the feeling of ominous foreboding, but also draws the viewer in closer to Eva’s isolation. Ramsay’s use of limited dialogue increases the terror and helplessness of Eva and the viewer, as she becomes increasingly aware of the path Kevin is taking.

The viewer is aware from almost the opening of the film that something terrible has happened. The question becomes the when, the what and to whom. What can you do when you, and only you, know that something is deeply wrong but no one else sees it. How do you feel when your sensation of greatest danger comes from the one closest to you? Kevin, from a very early age, knows instinctively that guilt and manipulation create an inextricable bond. For him, hate is stronger than love.

The accolades heaped on Tilda Swinton’s performance in this film are totally justified. Her helplessness, terror and victimization are played out almost soundlessly, much like Edvard Munch’s painting The Scream. There is no doubt that, from the moment of his birth, Eva sincerely tried everything and will never give up. Her self loathing is increased by Kevin’s facile manipulation of her feelings. No doubt she begins to see in Kevin a reflection of everything bad within herself. Swinton is called to play the many ages of fear and does so expertly.

Swinton’s performance would not, however, have been possible without the two young men who played Kevin, Jasper Newell (Kevin in early childhood) and Ezra Miller as the adolescent Kevin. Newell, as the budding manipulative sociopath, successfully combines a beatific smile with ominous eyes. It is his performance as the child who is not quite right in ways that can’t be explained that sets up the masterful performance of Miller, a beautiful young man with inscrutable features and a black heart. Miller’s Kevin should now be considered the gold standard for sociopathic children, previously held by Patty McCormack’s Rhoda in Maxwell Anderson’s play “The Bad Seed.”

The usually excellent John C. Reilly, playing Eva’s husband Franklin, is the weak link. It may be that his character is poorly written or perhaps it’s his lack of chemistry with Swinton that undermines his performance. Certainly there doesn’t seem to be any connection between the two of them and his easy rapport with Kevin seems much less believable than Kevin’s rapport with him.

Running 112 minutes, the movie could easily have been streamlined down to 90 minutes. Still, there is no question that this is a worthy, disorienting film that brings to mind lyrics from the Beatles’ “I Am the Walrus,” as in “I am he as you are he as you are me and we are all together. See how they run like pigs from a gun, see how they fly. I’m crying.“ Or, as expressed by Kevin, “There is no point. That’s the point.”

Nevertheless, premiering a film like this during the holidays when depression is at a high point, is positively suicidal.

In very limited release, opening Friday December 9 at the Silent Movie Theatre in Los Angeles.

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