Most parents think of their children as little angels, no matter how badly they behave. Even when their kid is a little hellion, they still think the brat can do no wrong. Or (even worse), they turn a blind eye to their kid’s antics.
Eva (Tilda Swinton) knows her son Kevin (Ezra Miller) is a bad seed from a very early age. The little bugger is smart too. He acts like a little prince to everyone else and only shows his true nature to his devastated mother. Bound by love or duty or helplessness, she is powerless to do anything as he slowly morphs into a complete psycho.
Director Lynne Ramsey’s We Need to Talk About Kevin is the art house version of the Macauley Culkin killer kid flick, The Good Son. We’ve seen plenty of these killer kid movies before. What makes this one so disturbing is that Ramsey puts you so deeply rooted in Tilda’s shoes that you feel damn near every second of her anguish. We are right there with her as she watches in horror as her son matures into a monster.
We Need to Talk About Kevin is different from so many other killer kid flicks, mostly because it is told in a nonlinear fashion. We know things are going to go bad eventually. It’s just a question of how and when. Some scenes are short and fragmented, feeling like half-remembered memories. Sometimes the horror comes less from Kevin being a bad kid and more from others perceiving her as a bad parent. Sometimes that’s even worse.
Ramsey is the real deal. This isn’t exactly a horror movie, but it is the most uneasy I have felt watching a movie in a long time. It’s like watching a car crash in slow motion. You sit there, idly watching as everything goes to hell. The film is especially traumatizing if you’re a parent, as it adds another layer of unease to the proceedings.
The film is anchored by a riveting performance by Swinton. It’s also uneasy seeing John C. Reilly cast as the clueless father as he basically plays his usual self, which heightens the counterbalance between the two parents. However, it’s the chilling performance by Miller as Kevin that makes it memorable. He is truly evil to the core. He has everyone around his mother snowballed into thinking he’s an All-American boy, while simultaneously taking demented glee in letting his mother know just how twisted he really is, all the while knowing she’s helpless to do anything about it. Miller is thoroughly despicable as the sociopathic teenager, but really, all the young actors who play the character at various stages are equally great.
Blech I hated this stupid movie, pretentious crap, and who the hell uses a bow and arrow to commit a massacre in high school anyways? Kind of makes the guy a lot less intimidating, plus they try to do the whole "violent video games turn you into a killer" thing which made me roll my eyes.
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