Rather, Ramsay's film is an extended treatment of the optics of grief and guilt. Maybe everything else is intended to be a flashback, and the timeline begins when she finds out what Kevin did at his high school. Yet it is in those infrequent instances of relief, conversion and mercy that the film finds its identity and direction. Copyright 2023. Privacy Policy. But Kevin is just getting started, and his final act will be be Kevin's mother struggles to love her strange child, despite the increasingly dangerous things he says and does as he grows up. The red paint of vandals stains her car and the front of her house. Kevin is a story of hope for a new millennium, an Its 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. 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. Try refreshing this page.If the problem persists, contact our support contact our support The opening shot fades to white, before cutting to a sea of red in the next sequence, foreshadowing the bloodshed to come. David Badash. 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. You couldnt have possibly thought that seeing someone eat lychee would be so distressing, but Ezra Miller makes it happen. 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. None of that takes anything away from yet another deeply felt performance by the always-interesting Swinton. He completely denies the reality of Kevin's personality and identity, and thus any agency over their relationship. 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. Something just happened. The mistake would be to take the film apart and try to reconnect the pieces in chronological order. Ambivalent toward motherhood, Eva struggles to care about her increasingly cruel son, Kevin (Ezra Miller). Alienated from friends and community, all she has left is her son. 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. Starring: Tilda Swinton, Ezra Miller, John C. Reilly. So, his dressing sense is perhaps not an indictment of his bitterness. KATY: We had this whole scene where we're all cheering at the end kind of thing. Eva Khatchadourian (Tilda Swinton), a former travel writer, gives up her life of adventure when she becomes pregnant. Eva always wanted a daughter, and as her attention moves from Kevin, he becomes more and more begrudging towards his sister. We see it in her bond with the more amiable Celia. Franklin does not and cannot understand Kevin, and completely resists any opportunity to do so. There have been a lot of discussions nature vs. nurture, but I've been thinking she was not ok during pregnancy, usually postpartum depression starts after birth. And as serial killers are often tagged as psychopaths, we assume that the menacing nature of Kevin is dormant in him at birth. Franklin, on the other hand, does not give him a path to honest interactions. Be respectful! Kevin is seen to be wearing short clothes most of the time, like when Eva takes him out for mini-golfing. Keep your comments focused on the film. 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. 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. Now I'm not so sure." Kevin gets taught about sex from his mother but he already knows what it is and calls it "fucking". Super-Hero partners Scott Lang (Paul Rudd) and Hope van Dyne (Evangeline Lilly) return to continue their adventures as Ant-Man and the Wasp. See production, box office & company info. In a sonic sleight-of-hand, the joyful cheers alchemise into the sorrowful cries of the families and friends of Kevin's victims. The woman sits up in alarm and shakes the MAN. 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 goes into postpartum depression, and her menacing and antisocial kid Kevin only aggravates her ailment. Any spoilers should be placed in spoiler tags as such. Ramsay regularly cuts to a scene where Eva is driving her car past flashing police lights toward the scene of some tragedy. Instead, maternal ambivalence is coded as horror. Kevin's insidious nature is best exemplified in a scene staged in the aftermath of Celia losing her eye. That the film works so brilliantly is a tribute in large part to the actors. 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. "At the end of the day, I have no idea, and that pure, serene, ignorance has become, itself, a funny kind of solace," she writes in a letter to her deceased husband. KATY: Oh, I'd love to come back. He grows into a spiteful toddler, refusing to say "mommy" and egging on her frustrations. Together, with Hopes parents Janet van Dyne (Michelle Pfeiffer) and Hank Pym (Michael Douglas), and Scotts daughter Cassie Lang (Kathryn Newton), the family finds themselves exploring the Quantum Realm, interacting with strange new creatures and embarking on an adventure that will push them beyond the limits of what they thought possible. Like a fluke, nothing to do with her personality or her hubby's personality? So is Amelia in The Babadook. In an ordinary movie, there would be scenes in classrooms, meetings with counselors, heart-to-heart discussions between the parents. Their tumultuous relationship goes from annoyance over his smashing jammy bread onto the coffee table to feelings of fear after he stuffs the family pet down the garbage disposal. Three days before his 16th birthday, Kevin Khatchadourian (Ezra Miller) kills several students, a teacher and a cafeteria worker in his high school gymnasium. Directed by Peyton Reed and produced by Kevin Feige, p.g.a. When the teenage Kevin surprisingly assents to a mother/son date, Eva is hopeful for the opportunity to cultivate a deeper relationship. 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. Children seldom get that attention, though. ET. As Robin Hood, little Kevin appears in a similar-looking shirt. That's a deeply human tale, and it calls to us, and I think that's why I see takes on the movie saying that it even encourages the viewer to think evil is in our nature and is immutable. As a portrait of a deteriorating state of mind, "We Need to Talk About Kevin" is a masterful film. I could have sworn that during the first time I watched it there was a scene of Kevin, Franklin and Celia in the garden and it shows how Kevin actually murdered them. Though Ramsay does away with Eva as a first-person narrator in the film, she still retains Eva's point-of-view throughout. Was he acting out to punish Eva? For full Oscars coverage and commentary by its reviewer, Fr. If you are having trouble tying loose ends, let us assist you in the process. Eva's elation is reflected in the room's warm yellows and flowers on the bedside table. 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. For Kevin, maternal love and attention have become completely conflated with disgust and fear. The film does not show us how Kevin presents the eyeball to Eva in jail. About | Nicoletta Vallorani in her essay Of women and children: Bad mothers as rough heroes, reads a Biblical metaphor into We Need to Talk About Kevin. 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? Growing up with a cold mother does not turn one into mass murdered either. What is lupus, an autoimmune disease diagnosed in Selena Gomez causing her weight gain? Read More: Best Movies About Mental Illness. 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). describes the "nature vs. nurture" debate. So, what did that exchange mean for the Khatchadourians? He is pursuing a Licentiate in Sacred Theology at Heythrop College in London. All Rights Reserved. And the whole thought was just to fight and keep fighting? 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. I have the feeling that this film, by entering Eva's mind, sees only what has been battering her down for 16 years. When he is interviewed on TV, a reflection of Eva's face on the screen is overlaid on his. The most plausible answer is that Kevin killed the family to hurt his mother. Go do something. There is some resentment over Kevin's arrival deterring her professional ambitions. The result is that Franklin completely deprives Kevin of proper care - not only mental healthcare, but any other kind of care. ComicBookMovie.com is a registered trademark and has been officially registered with the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). 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. By. As Kevin develops, he refuses to be potty-trained, mocks Eva and rejects her attempts at physical affection. this is the best pro-antinatalism PSA out there . As he grows up, we see him in a blue t-shirt, and consecutively, in a bland white one. 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. Directed by Lynne Ramsay, "We Need to Talk About Kevin" is fragments of time, jagged and confusing, lurching around inside her mind. In front of his mother, Kevin is often a difficult, menacing and unresponsive boy. Fast forward to fifteen year old Kevin, and we can see that this habit has become his worldview. How difficult was it to play the straight woman when everyone around you gets to be fairly silly in the early scenes? Footsteps approach the tent and a figure walks past. But it's also pretty surface level. Kevin has numerous reasons to hate his mother, Eva. This is also true of Eva, but we see the conflict in her about her son's mental state. His son is who Franklin says he is, and anything else is just invisible. Kevin chooses to conceal the incident from Franklin. Motherhood was therefore intended as a punishment.. to revoke its approval of the two main drugs used for medication abortion in the United States. Or to put it differently, Ramsay more or less stays true to the novel's somewhat callow and, at times, hysterical approach to the rich questions of maternal doubt. By provoking her, Kevin is able to get some precious emotional honesty out of her. Or maybe I'm somehow getting it mixed up with another film! From ths beginning of the movie they lay out the whole story, but it isn't until you watch the full thing that you piece everything together and get this larger than life story. Cookies help us deliver our Services. 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. 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