We Need to Talk About Kevin (2011)
Starring: Tilda Swinton, John C. Reilly, Ezra Miller, Jasper
Newell, Ashley Gerasimovich, Siobhan Fallon,
Plot: Kevin's mother struggles to love her strange child,
despite the increasingly vicious things he says and does as he grows up. But
Kevin is just getting started, and his final act will be beyond anything anyone
imagined.
My Review and Thoughts:
Finally got around to watching We Need to Talk about Kevin,
what a dark, bleak, depressing and disturbing film. Tilda Swinton was awesome.
Her performance as the mother gives the clarity of what truly great acting is
about. She owned her part and made you feel her pain and ultimate depressing
reality. This movie is a social statement and truly a film that creates and
develops a darker reality and a toned atmosphere of nightmarish concepts which
chronicles such a movement of real life, that it leaves such a stain on the
viewer.
A film that expresses a story so real and so truthful this
day and age.
Yeah it's hard to watch. I really like how they showcase a mother’s
true love in a weird trapped way. At first, the absence of really not wanting a
child in that it destroys her life and it seems the child is born unwanted and
unloved and it feels that ultimate dread of emotion from its mother. Yet in the
end, the child ends up becoming her whole world, she is trapped. A mother's
true ultimate love expresses itself, in never giving up, no matter the horror.
A child born as if stained with neglect and emotional depravity ends up
reflecting that disdain.
Truly a conversation piece that bleeds an emotional roller
coaster of the darker side of life and the end results that not all endings are
happy.
Okay time to begin my B.S. soap box sermon:
This day and age when the news spreads one school shooting
after the other. When senseless crime takes place due to depressed or bullied
children or as in most cases and in this film with one parent, not really given
in to the fact that something is wrong. It ends up becoming too late. The
aftermath is greater than the nightmares of hell. The movie displays the
reality that is so true. In this case the male figure, the dad sees nothing
wrong with his son. Goes about turning the cheek. That turning away ends up
coasting the ultimate. Every school shooter in the news, had guns, supplied in
most cases by their parents. Some built bombs in their garage and created an
arsenal right under the parent’s noses. If your life is so business that you
don't put an effort into your child's life by looking around your own home, or
locking your guns away then there is something wrong with society and your
parenting skills.
I own guns. I love buying guns. But I take the
responsibility of knowing those guns are secured and cannot be gotten to. But
as in this movie it's not about a gun control issue for this has nothing to do
with guns. For if there was no guns the child, wronged, alienated or depressed,
mental issues; will still act out. The gun in society is just an easier way.
With no gun, hint knifes, bombs, arrows. The weapons are not the issue. We have
to have something to blame. We should be blaming the truth, which is ourselves
and the culture our children are growing up in. The issue is culture and the
person’s emotional and fragile state caused by culture. We are a culture of
bullies and the fascination with death and destruction. We build ourselves on
saying everything is all right. We turn our cheeks to the real truth and say
everything is okay. Sadly that reality ends up causing The Sandy Hook Massacre,
The Virginia Tech Rampage, and Columbine School Shooting. School Shootings are
not the point, it's the persons causing it. There was signs and problems and
faults that could have prevented the problems before they happened and yet we
did nothing. That's one of the points of the movie. Kevin is loved by everyone
as a perfect child. His mother sees otherwise and yet can get no help from the
reality she knows. In real life, all these rampage killers have problems and
there are tons of warning signs that people just turn their cheeks to and then
it's too late when they finally stare and look and notice. We must understand there
is always going to be a victim no matter if it's by a bullet or by hand. The
weapon is not the cause, it's the person. If there is not a bullet or arrow
then there is fist. The bullet or arrow just makes it easier. If you’re a
parent supplying your child with any weapon of any sorts then you are
responsible of its care and its ability to be gotten to. If it's gotten to and
used in a crime then you should be held responsible along with the child that
uses it.
End of My B.S. Soap Box Sermon.
This is a film that is utterly horror induced in a reality
setting of truth that to me is a wakeup call. It's a film that expresses so
many wrongs and yet so many truths. There is a problem with our children and we
as adults have to fix or at least try. In this case one parent saw and the
other choose not to.
The film does have some flaws to it which saddens me because
it's such a great film. The main flaw is the editor allowed certain moments in
the film that should not have ever been left in. The small, child actors look
at the camera at times which totally destroys the reality of the film in those
moments. It's not the actor’s fault, it's the editing's fault. It's a small
flaw but an effective flaw that sadly hurts the pace of the film in those two
moments.
I highly recommend the book this movie is based on. It was
written by an amazing story teller Lionel Shriver. The book is a great and
twisted ordeal just like the movie, but the book gives a lot more story and
Lionel lets you experience more of the tight, haunting reality of Kevin's truth
and the emotional makeup of all the characters.
Directed by an extraordinary director and visionary Lynne
Ramsey. She directed and wrote one of my all-time favorite films that I highly
recommend and accept as one of the greatest films to be created and that's
1999's Ratcatcher. She understands her characters and the overall plight of each
personal behind the camera lens. I loved We Need to Talk about Kevin. I think
she did the book justice, even though there where small parts from the book
left out I still think she was able to capture the ultimate dread, horror and
nightmare of the subject and the reality of an emotional roller coaster.
All the performances I felt worked. I think by far one of
the best performances and the best of her acting career is by Tilda Swinton.
She gives her all and is truly a beautiful woman and an amazing gifted actress
that shines in so many ways in this film. I felt her pain. I felt her un-want.
I felt her desire of escape. I felt the nightmare inside her mind and soul, I
felt her broken heart. I felt her mother’s will. Most of all I felt the
darkened desire of a love and hate relationship for Kevin. She gave her all.
Stunning. Next I have to say I loved Ezra Miller as the teenage Kevin. He had
that evil, Bad Seed smirk and aura about him in his performance. Ezra made the
viewer feel haunted by his lack of care, emotion and most of all deceiving
ways. Miller is perfect in the part and is truly a fascinating actor that I
feel knows what he wants in a character and how he displays the character in
all his craft of performance. Jasper Newell as young Kevin was a small little
monster that expressed a childlike hatred or a terrible two persona of
overload. I felt he aced his part as the out of control growing psychopath.
This is a film that mixes all the genera's together to
complete the ultimate dark story. Drama laced with the undercurrents of a
thriller. Most of all this movie mixes the idea of a reality based horror that
never really lets up and you wonder, just how the story will end.
Highly recommended.