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. Maternal ambivalence turns into filial antagonism, colouring her perception of him as inherently evil. Not sure I get the fuss about this one. But it also doesn't set out to wag a moral finger or make any grand, sweeping statements. He answers, I used to think I knew why, and now Im not so sure. This small act of hesitant humility is followed by Kevins embrace of his mother which can only be likened to the embrace received by that infamous scriptural progeny upon his arrival home. 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. 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. Eva rushes to the school to see Kevin getting arrested. The ending of the film leaves Eva's fate up in the air. So what about Franklin? Mimicking the cyclical nature of trauma, the shot repeats in the climax, where Eva discovers the slain bodies of her husband and daughter. Despite the fact that Eva is a travel writer of particular renown, she is bound by an understanding of mother/child relationships that do not correspond with her own relationship with her son. Advertise, Funny Superhero (DC & Marvel) Shirts & Stickers. To rate, slide your finger across the stars from left to right. In a sonic sleight-of-hand, the joyful cheers alchemise into the sorrowful cries of the families and friends of Kevin's victims. For more information, please see our 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. His reply: "You don't want to kill your audience.". Kevin eats the lychee with a degree of grossness, and when his mother says that he never liked lychee as a fruit, Kevin has to say that it is an acquired taste. The cast ensemble, with Tilda Swinton, John C. Reilly, and Ezra Miller in a menacing role, cannot be praised enough. Growing up with a cold mother does not turn one into mass murdered either. Moving back and forth in time, the narrative revolves around a picture-perfect American family, but as the story progresses, we see cracks in the familial structure. otakucode 11 yr. ago Swinton gives an outstanding performance, somehow managing to repeatedly convey implacability and vulnerability in the same moment. Eva is entirely bound by the expectations of a culture that fetishizes the mommy and insists upon a particular quality and dynamic in order for relationships to be healthy and normative. Powered by WordPress.com VIP. Ramsay improves on Shriver's portrait of a mother with an honesty that leaves us thinking about Eva long after the credits roll. This turns out to be some sort of annual Italian tomato festival, but the image is disturbing. Selena Gomez recently opened up on how the autoimmune condition is affecting her weight due to water retention from all the medication in her recent Tik-Tok live stream. For instance, the ball game Eva plays with a toddler Kevin: when Kevin successfully rolls the ball back to her, her praise is strained and brittle. An unshakeable experience and a daring experiment in film form, Lynne Ramsay's We Need to Talk About Kevin challenged conventional wisdom on what makes for a good adaptation. Or maybe I'm somehow getting it mixed up with another film! Keep your comments focused on the film. 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 wont rally around you and more often than not Mr. Potter carries the day. Swinton is collecting a bevy of early plaudits and nominations, as well she should. He's positive, cheerful, disconnected; he always behaves as nicely as he can, and in doing so, suggests his profound cluelessness. Fr. Did you work with her individually on creating some of that dynamic since Jentorra is someone that's been in this fight a long time versus Cassie who is just beginning her fight against Kang? The impressionistic nature of the film does not blurt out the whole truth, and the audience has to make their own journey to construct the meaning. Eva often looks like she's in a state of shock. His willful misbehaviors continue as his mother becomes more estranged from him. While Eva and Franklin argue over the accident, Kevin taunts his mother by peeling a litchi, with a smug look on his face. Nothing makes sense. With Tilda Swinton, John C. Reilly, Ezra Miller, Jasper Newell. Only with her because his father was at work whole day and saw his son for like an hour a day. The past and present intertwine as Eva recalls Kevins formative years from childhood to adolescence, hoping for clues on what went wrong. Also read:Author Lionel Shriver on her early writing, politics, essential reading list and persevering out of 'sheer spite'. For removal of copyrighted images, trademarks, or other issues, Contact Us. Franklin's story is simpler but in some ways I think it's worse. When asked about the film adaptation in an interview with The Guardian, Shriver said her biggest concern was if they'd be able to "capture the quality of the slightly unreliable narrator and the ambiguity over who is to blame. Kevin is a defiant baby who screams incessantly but never around Franklin. Kevin's insidious nature is best exemplified in a scene staged in the aftermath of Celia losing her eye. She mentions that she believes he'll be released in five years. Franklin himself lives in a state of demented decency, deceiving himself that his family are living acceptable lives. Eva finally asks why he did it. Was he acting out to punish Eva? A lawsuit could force the F.D.A. KATY: I kind of saw Jentorra as someone who was already part of a warrior society, so maybe she was used to fighting already, but in kind of a way different level. Neither parent punishes him or seeks outside help, leaving him to his own devices. So, I'm personally glad that they distanced that part of the thing from this character, but there was so little overlap that - There's only seven comic books, I think, that have Jentorra in them - that we really did seem to have a lot more freedom to kind of create a fully new character for this. It must be something like this to have a nervous breakdown. Instead, it's a personal story about a family or more specifically, a mother (an excellent Swinton) and her troubled son. Three days before turning 16, Kevin unleashes chaos in his school. Directed by Peyton Reed and produced by Kevin Feige, p.g.a. The kind of clothes one chooses is also indicative of ones social status. Kevin overhears his parents talking about a divorce, which adds to his anger towards the world. We see Kevin as a troubled kid who may need greater care. KATY: Yeah, I was so jealous, because I really loved it. BBC Films KATY: Yeah, I mean, a lot of it would be drawn from movies, essentially. While Eva is shown throughout the film to be indifferent toward her son, Kevin's actions are fueled by his desire to spite her. Kevin appears in a short sleeve red shirt as a toddler. Kevin grows up to be ever more distant. This is not entirely his fault. See movies like "The innocents" (1961, Jack Clayton) (pay attention to the title) and "The omen" (1976, Richard Donner). Yet it is in those infrequent instances of relief, conversion and mercy that the film finds its identity and direction. Instead, maternal ambivalence is coded as horror. Kevin is a story of hope for a new millennium, an It's a Wonderful Life in the age of school shootings and planes crashing into buildings -- a world-weary world that has been bombarded by nihilistic themes in their narratives for the better part of a century. Anyways I haven't read the book but I guess I probably should lol, Scan this QR code to download the app now. There was also a really short interaction that I had with Bill Murray, where we released him from holding, because it kind of looks like he died in the movie now, pretty early on. I mean, there's no room for the leader of the rebellion to give up. Home | However, just the neglect of his mother would not amount to the cathartic finale. ", As with any book-to-film adaptation, some of the nuances were lost in translation. By rejecting non-essential cookies, Reddit may still use certain cookies to ensure the proper functionality of our platform. You know, it's all fun and games until you really understand that every single decision that you make impacts everybody. David Badash. She sits in a blank daze in the hospital room. 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 viewers mind. We Need to Talk About Kevin is a 2003 novel by Lionel Shriver. But Eva is incapable of showing him the love that he deserves, even after trying her best. As a teenager, Kevin (now played by Ezra Miller) has started to cruelly resemble his mother in profile and hairstyle. 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. Twice in flashbacks to Kevin's parents in their dating days, a UPS terminal with trucks can be seen in the near background. The desolate inner worlds of Ramsay's protagonists come alive through a sensory perspective. ROHAN: Considering that you had done Black Lightningand Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.,and already gotten a small taste of superhero projects before stepping into this massive MCU project. Does she ever. Don't post randomness/off-topic comments. Apparently even before he began to talk, Kevin made a vow to punish Eva for her feelings. I think that she and Jentorra had a huge past together. This is why, in the final scene, he no longer knows why he performed the massacre. Meanwhile, Kevin is planning something that would shatter Evas world forever. His attitude towards his son is warmer, but underneath there's no more depth than there is with Eva. This in turn completely undermines the husband/wife dynamic. But recent years have shown horror films can write mothers full of contradictions that challenge the status quo. Copyright 2023. KATY: Oh, I'd love to come back. There are several red flags in the movie that indicates Kevins volatile dispositions, but an accurate diagnosis is not possible. Swinton is excellent as Eva, the reluctant mother tormented by her psychopathic son, and director Lynne Ramsay handles the disjointed time structure well, but that's about all I can commend about it. ROHAN: Was there anything major cut that you remember shooting? When Eva gets pregnant for the second time, Kevin feels that he has become estranged from the family and grows jealous. By contrast with Elephant's oddly diffident lyricism, We Need To Talk About Kevin's expressionistic naturalism has a roiling, post-traumatic nonlinearity. In an ordinary movie, there would be scenes in classrooms, meetings with counselors, heart-to-heart discussions between the parents. Prosecutors downgrade charges in Alec Baldwin shooting case, Die Hard star Bruce Willis has frontotemporal dementia, condition worsens, As We Need to Talk about Kevin turns 10, a look at what made it such a haunting meditation on motherhood. So, I think it'd be really cool to explore that either in future Quantum Realm stuff or if somehow I got sucked out into the surface world or something, any of that would be fun. February 24, 2023 at 12:05 PM ET. She obviously feels complicit and takes on the role of communal scapegoat as a way to expiate her own guilt as well as to grieve the loss of her family. In the next sequence, he appears in a loose white shirt. Some animals sometimes know that something is not right with fetus and can even abort it voluntary or when it is born, they abandon it. Franklin does not and cannot understand Kevin, and completely resists any opportunity to do so. On one prison visit, he describes her throwing him at a wall and breaking his arm as "the most honest thing you ever did.". Tilda Swinton, in a bracing, tour-de-force performance,. When the teenage Kevin surprisingly assents to a mother/son date, Eva is hopeful for the opportunity to cultivate a deeper relationship. A prolific writer and the ostensible head of a travel agency, Eva cares more about her own unfulfilled wishes than her ever-menacing son. "We Need to Talk About Kevin" is a movie adaptation of Lionel Shriver's novel with the same title. Kevin predominantly shows signs of antisocial personality disorder, and when it is left unnoticed by his parents, Kevins condition takes a wrong turn. That the film works so brilliantly is a tribute in large part to the actors. Sometimes Zuzus petals are all you have to hold onto. What is the streaming release date of We Need to Talk About Kevin (2011) in Canada? So, that part I kind of liked because it shows, okay, this is what someone who's still fighting, interacting with someone who kind of essentially gave in. In any other movie, that would be child abuse. He is her., Her identity forever defined by the horrors inflicted by her son, Evas punishment is her loneliness. One may ask how one of the main instincts of every living thing, the need to reproduce, could be frightful. Contact | He completely denies the reality of Kevin's personality and identity, and thus any agency over their relationship. But he hates her the most due to her pretense and dishonesty, it seems. The moments of Grace are, as they should be, not in moments like the dinner scene but in the unexpected. When she asks him that honest question, having accepted the reality of her abuse towards him, she comes to him totally honest And he no longer feels that underlying connection between love and fear that motivated him to his actions. Be respectful! While the film isn't as explicit as the book, both versions of Eva are grappling with Kevin's final answer as they wonder if it's even worth feeling weighed down by the question of responsibility. Because Kevin is infallible to Franklin, he's also incapable of needing help, and as a result Franklin seems to have no respect to any sort of danger to his son, even giving a disturbed young man a lethal weapon just for fun on his fifteenth birthday - something that could even be considered an act in direct defiance of the reality of his son's deteriorating mental state, or even a dare. ROHAN: You have a few scenes with Kathryn Newton, who is playing Cassie, in the film. Stripping the screenplay off words, the disturbance arises from a seamless amalgamation of image and sound. 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. 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? I'd be happy to see what they come up with, but, they have more of the understanding of the wildness of the world that they're building. Shortly after, Eva goes back to the house. It's very hard for me to take things seriously, I love to crack jokes and everything, and, I mean, they're so funny off-set, even the guy that played Xolum, James Cutler, he's so funny, and he's just screaming random stuff, when you're trying to be serious, and just all of a sudden, this yell comes out of nowhere, and you're trying to just keep a straight face. It discloses its narrative fitfully, in snatches and gobbets that make sense only gradually, like the . Jokes are fine, but don't post tactless/inappropriate ones. But it's also pretty surface level. A suspenseful and gripping psychological thriller, WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT KEVIN explores the relationship between a mother and her evil son. Will she continue living in their hometown, where she's harassed by locals who blame her for the deaths? In a film otherwise devoid of hope, these subtle suggestions give the audience a sense of comfort. Eva and Franklin are a happily married couple till Eva gives birth to Kevin. About | He doesn't have the emotional capacity to have a disturbed son, and so has decided that he doesn't and that's the end of it. Eva apparently thought her early life was on the right track and tells her screaming baby boy she would frankly rather be back in Paris than changing his diaper. Despite his crime, she sells the house to pay the legal fees, moves closer to the prison so she can visit him, and continues to support him. Kevin does not play ball, and he becomes increasingly manipulative. to revoke its approval of the two main drugs used for medication abortion in the United States. You tell me." Try refreshing this page.If the problem persists, contact our support contact our support And as serial killers are often tagged as psychopaths, we assume that the menacing nature of Kevin is dormant in him at birth. If this were an act of self-penance it might make sense, but there's no real sense Eva is doing it out of guilt either. Votes are used to help determine the most interesting content on RYM. Kevin has a real emotional attachment to his bow because the only time his mother showed him genuine affection was when he had the flu, and she read Robin Hood to him. While she's on the run when we meet her, it's the arrival of Scott (Paul Rudd) and Cassie Lang (Kathryn Newton) that brings her right back into the thick of the action. We see this throughout Kevin's early developmental journey. Eva goes into postpartum depression, and her menacing and antisocial kid Kevin only aggravates her ailment. The condition causes loss of the ability to understand or express speech. Did they create a monster, or was he born that way? None of that takes anything away from yet another deeply felt performance by the always-interesting Swinton. 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