Review: We Need to Talk About Kevin (2011)

We Need to Talk About Kevin is one of the most frustrating films I’ve ever seen. I say that as a both a compliment and a critique. It’s a film rooted in hoity-toitiness, one that tries almost too hard to make a statement and have a meaning. However, its attempts are admirable because it actually makes a very bold statement. Every frame has a deliberate intention, every scene is teeming with symbolism, and every shot comes back full circle to continue a lapsed thought left hanging early on in the film. There are jarring, disorienting cinematic techniques used throughout that attempts to shine light on the life of Kevin and his struggling mother whose trying to understand him. The highlight of We Need to Talk About Kevin is its tenacious way of presenting a slew of important topics to be discussed by viewers. Yet, its downfall is that while it speaks loudly, in the end it doesn’t really have anything important to say.

We Need to Talk About Kevin doesn’t offer any answers to the plague of school shootings that has now become almost commonplace in today’s society. Instead it merely follows Eva (Tilda Swinton) through her journey of raising a son who commits a mass killing. Eva was once a free spirited travel agent who meets Franklin (John C. Riley), only to be forced into domesticated life when she becomes pregnant. Already unenthused by the turn of events, and possibly suffering postpartum, her son, Kevin, is not of normal developing standards. He’s colicky as an infant, incredibly defiant despite his brilliance during childhood, and by his teenage years he’s your loner with a smart mouth and bad intentions making coexisting with his mother barely tolerable. Kevin goes on to prove just how malicious he can be when he orchestrates a school shooting.

I respect We Need to Talk About Kevin for telling a horrifically, sad tale with the idea of confronting the mental status of teens involved in school shootings. It also takes a deep look into how we as a society not only sensationalize such criminals through 24 hour news coverage, but also unjustly villainize their loved ones. Eva has to endure the pains of social stigma in her town after the shootings when her only crime was being the mother. Kevin’s behavior begs the argument of his biochemistry and upbringing. Is he merely predisposed to a life of enjoying other’s pain or was the docile parenting attempts of Eva and Franklin at fault? These are important arguments of nature vs. nurture, but audiences aren’t given a clear understanding of either element because of how the film chooses to develop the story and characters.

We Need to Talk About Kevin’s narrative structure is about as a non-linear as they come, you basically need a drawing compass to keep up with it. Directed by Lynne Ramsey, the film tells Kevin’s story though a series of time traveling memory recall. There are three major time frames; Eva’s life pre-Kevin, life with Kevin, and life post Kevin’s shooting. All of these moments in time are visited nearly simultaneously with little indication of where viewers are and where we’re going next. Scenes jump rapidly from Kevin as a toddler, to Eva meeting Franklin, then to Kevin in prison and back to toddler years again. While I admire its attempt stand out, We Need to Talk About Kevin’s story and subsequent meaning just seems too important to confuse audiences by jumping here, there, and everywhere.

We Need to Talk About Kevin is important for its sociological and psychoanalytic implications, but that’s thanks to the topic it explores and not the film’s showcasing of that topic. I learned nothing about Kevin or his family, only how he did what he did and how a lack of empathy led him there. His parents never attempt to get him help, he never sees a therapist, nor does Eva question his defiance through life. Who knows, maybe that was the point, but developing Kevin the way the film does makes that point moot. Gus Van Sant’s Elephant is a prime example of an exceptional film that explores the unexplainable topic of school shootings, while the campy but thrilling 1956 film, The Bad Seed, exposes viewers to the reality of sociopaths without needed to justify or understand their actions. We Need to Talk About Kevin is arguably more cinematically impressive than the two, but that doesn’t mean its better.

 

Gallery of Images from We Need to Talk About Kevin

Watch the trailer for We Need to Talk About Kevin

 

John C. RileyTilda SwintonWe Need to Talk About Kevin