We Need To Talk About Kevin (2011)

Directed by: Lynne Ramsay
Written by: Lynne Ramsay/Rory Kinnear
Based on book by: Lionel Shriver

Sometimes a movie just needs a discussion. We Need To Talk About Kevin is absolutely one of those movies.

Before we get to that, though, let’s check out some previews.

MOONRISE KINGDOM–Few directors get me as excited as Wes Anderson. From the opening shots of this preview, I pretty much knew that it was his new film, even though I didn’t know that he had one coming. A young boy gets a young girl to leave home and go to the beach with him. Bill Murray is a not-so-worried father. Everyone else cool looks on. I’m there.

THE BEST EXOTIC MARIGOLD HOTEL–Every old British star is in this new film from John Madden. And, of course, they’re all charming as hell. Judi Dench, Maggie Smith, Bill Nighy, Tom Wilkinson…the only person missing is Michael Caine. The four of them and two others who look very familiar go to India and meet Dev Patel as he tries to romance a young lady and run a run-down hotel. Once again: I’m there.

ACT OF VALOR–Real Marines act in this military-sploitation flick. Billed as a “real story from real people” movie, I’m a little skeptical. Sure, it might be completely legit and it may allow these guys to really tell their story through a narrative film. Or it could just be Hollywood trying to help the Marines recruit more people by forcing non-actors to “act.” I’ll wait until I hear something about it.

DEADLINE–Eric Roberts stars as a jaded and slightly racist (although the preview is wishy-washy on this…is he actually racist? Or is he pretty much completely color-blind?) reporter writing a story on an 18 year old murder that no one investigated when it happened. The kid was killed and then no one but his mom cared. The preview is pretty heavy-handed and stereotypical of the type of movie this is, but I still kind of want to see it. It could end up being a great film. Or it could just be another one of “those” movies.

RAMPART–Speaking of “those” movies…Rampart definitely looks like NOT one of them. Woody Harrelson re-joins his director from The Messenger to tell the story of a racist cop who does whatever it takes to…well…make himself happy. He’s a bad cop. Absolutely. Or is he just doing “police work?” That’s what his lawyer (Steve Buscemi) would have us believe. This movie looks like the movie that Crash wanted to be, but didn’t have the guts to be.

Ok. Now, let’s talk about this monster.

Kevin (played as a teenager by the amazing Ezra Miller) apparently hates his mother, Eva (the equally amazing Tilda Swinton). As a young child, far too old to be in diapers, he would shit his pants while staring at her intently. As a teenager, he would keep masturbating even as she accidentally walked in on him…while staring at her intently. All of this he would hide from his loving but oblivious father (John C Riley).

The story is told from Eva’s point of view. We first see her living alone and being ostracized from society. For what, we don’t know. We only know that some tragedy happened and it involved Kevin. (The story is told out of sequence, much like The Limey. Her present story is sequential, but the flashbacks are in memory order. We never get the full story until the very end. And even then….) Everyone in town blames her, throwing red paint on her shabby house and car, punching her for no apparent reason and generally making her as uncomfortable as possible.

Or is all of this in her head? Is everyone really staring at her as she walks down the street? Are they really this hateful to her or does she just feel their eyes boring into her head because of the guilt that she feels for whatever happened in her recent past?

The other question that the film raises is the whole “Nature Or Nurture” question. Is Kevin a monster because he was born that way? Or because he was raised that way? Eva starts off trying to be a loving mother, but she certainly becomes something else when it becomes apparent that Kevin will not stop crying when he’s around her. He refuses to give an inch to his mother. His dad gets all of his love, but dear old mom gets nothing. Of course, this could also be purely a creation of Eva’s guilty mind. She’s making a reason for what happened to be her fault. (After all, she read him a book that started an interest that led to the tragedy. It had to ALL be her fault, right?)

That’s what keeps this movie great. It could have just been another movie about a bad kid. Instead, it becomes a movie that asks more questions than it answers. Lynne Ramsey and Rory Kinnear know that there are no answers to these questions. Not at present, anyway. The only way to answer them is to continue to ask them.

Just another in the pan of great films of 2011, We Need To Talk About Kevin is one that should be shown to parents everywhere. It won’t answer their questions for them, but it will force them to come up with their own personal answers.