We Need To Talk About Kevin (2011)

Tilda Swinton won awards for her tortured portrayal of the mother of titular Kevin. Psyched out and raving she is followed by the colour crimson everywhere like the spectre of her past haunted life; Eva (Swinton) lives her life in the shadow of some post-traumatic event that gradually unravels itself in the course of the narrative with a series of flashbacks. She lives in the same town, regularly discriminated by its others inhabitants. They douse her small house and Volvo in red paint; Eva spends the film scraping it off, as a visual act of catharsis. It's blood, it's grief, it's guilt; it's an inversion of the 'anger' that red usually denotes because she is not angry; it's a visual reminder of what terrible events marked Eva's life; and it's not subtle. There is crimson everywhere.

Kevin is involved. He is the ultimate problem child, inhibiting the relationship between mother and son with his facetious behaviour, deliberately and demonstrably altering his demeanour from his mother to his father (John C Reilly). We follow Kevin's development through Eva's flashbacks. The child actor (Jasper Newell) infuses his Kevin with the black beetle eyes of a menacing disposition but its the teenage Kevin, played by the brilliant Ezra Miller, who adds a disturbing charisma and darkly witty humour to the role. Of course the self-destructive origins of their relationship lie not only with Kevin but Eva herself; though she tried initially to forge the necessary connection they faltered repeatedly, because of his obstinacy and her inherent reluctance. Indeed Eva appears to have been reluctant about bearing him in the first place.


But its the recurrence of the crimson that runs right through We Need To Talk About Kevin. The colour flares up in tangible objects, dream sequences, metaphysical visions and within the flashbacks - it reminds her of that moment when she saw the outrageous crimes that Kevin gleefully carried out, and resonates down the two years that have since passed in her life, suffused with every bad experience she subsequently suffers. 

But, perversely, by representing the duality of guilt (for the way she raised Kevin) and memory, the crimson performs a kind of redemptive role, contrarily bringing Eva and Kevin closer together. At the end he is suddenly fearing the black abyss of his imprisoned future, she feeling responsible for the torturous violence of his wayward teenage behaviour, and so for the first time they embrace sincerely.

I haven't read the original novel by Lionel Shriver but I should think Scottish director Lynne Ramsay took the story in her own artistic direction - as filmic adaptations ought to. She unites (because she co-wrote the screenplay) the strands of flashback and the present with inventive cinematography, employing all manner of compelling photographic techniques. By doing so she infuses every scene with a nihilism, questioning the nature of being in the modern world and, possibly, even the unconditional joy ordinarily felt in the bearing and rearing of children. We Need To Talk About Kevin is a movie without humour - even black comedy is non-existent. It's a depressing watch but in an unorthodox manner, incisively conveying its intended tone of rampant pessimism.