I went to this movie with a very high expectation, I had read numerous glowing reviews on web-sites and newspapers, my favorite film critic, Mark Kermode, had said that this was the film of the year so far & members of my family and friends were telling me that this was one you had to see in the cinema. I had a vague idea of what the buzz was with it from the trailer and from people plot spoiling, I had grown to like Tilda Swinton in the last few things she had done and I was eager to see her in a film where she would take on the leading role. So if you said, I was looking forward to check it out We Need To Talk About Kevin, you would probably be right.



Myself and Darren were chilling in our place, restless and bored, as you are when it's the middle of the week, your living in town and there aren't many people around. We both bottled it during the weekend because there was an unmissable documentary about Susan Boyle on, and we weren't missing that for the life of us. So . . . anyway, there we were again, on a brisk Tuesday night with a similar dilemma, were we to go to cinema to check this film out or were we going to stay in and watch the Snapper, a film both of us hadn't seen in a while. Fuck it, we thought, lets get our arses out of the apartment and hit up the Screen for some weird homicidal arthouse cinema. Lets do it!



There is a lot to be said about entering the cinema from the back of the auditorium, why? You may ask, I'll tell you why. If you have the entrance at the front of the auditorium, as they do in the Screen Cinema, it is health and safety policy to have a big fuck off emergancy exit sign above the door, a sign that has to remain on at all times. Now, for the people who are responisble for that, you do realise how irritating it is going to be to try and watch a film with that in our eye lines, the thing is right beside the screen, what are you doing? The sign was catching my eye for the duration of the cinematic experience. When are people going to realize that even the slightest bit of light is going to distract a person, especially this person.

The film is centred around the Tilda Swinton character, Eva, a woman that is obviously going through or has gone through what looks to be a slight nervous breakdown. She lives on her own in a small dilapidated house that has been viscously vandalized with red paint, her car has also received similar abuse and every where she goes, she encounters women who are not only threatening to her but are physically abusive to her. We are now fairly clear that something very bad has happened, what could Eva have done to have deserved all this? We then jump into flash backs, where Tidla Swinton is in the arms of John C Rielly, they are completely in love, everything is great and they are expecting a baby. The baby eventually arrives and this is where we encounter Kevin for the first time.



As a baby, Kevin is a crier, actually not a crier but a screamer, the worst kind of baby a person could ask for. As Kevin grows up to be a toddler, we see that this child is slowly evolving into a little demon. The John C Rielly character, Franklin, some how maintains a solid relationship with his son, Kevin, throughout film but, his mother, Eva (Swinton) cannot understand or connect with Kevin in anyway. Along comes a little sister into the mix as Kevin grows towards his adolescence and we see that he has not calmed down or matured with age, but that he has gotten worse, and he is now brandishing a bow and arrow.

Okay, I'm gonna start off by saying, I was hugely disappointed by this film, I found it highly depressing and unnecessarily nasty at points. I was trying to figure out why there was such a natural resentment towards the Tilda Swinton character from Kevin, and not to the John C Rielly character. I was also confused by the fact that the father (Rielly) wasn't aware of the way Kevin was treating his mother when it was happening right in front of him, was this some arthouse methaphor. I was waiting for some moment of revelation towards the end in one of these character, a reason for all of this, a twist maybe, anything that would justify me sitting there watching it. This wasn't a moral tail in anyway, none of the character changed or redeemed themselves. It wasn't a journey that I believe any mother goes through with their sons, even if they do reject them at birth or even have problems connecting with them in later teenage years. Another thing I couldn't get my head around was the way society was reacting towards a woman in Eva's position in the present tenths, I just didn't see the point of any of it. I didn't believe any of it, Tilda Swinton was too strong a character in the past tenths, she was a published writer who had experienced traveling, a person that had everything going for her except for her relationship with her son, only the relationship with her son.

If I'm gonna be honest, I thought Tilda Swinton was brilliant in it and she'll probably get an Oscar nod for it as well, you really do feel that this is a woman who has hit bottom, she oozes venerability and she pulls off the performance of her life. Its just the story didn't do it for me, that's what let this film down. John C Rielly is his usual reliable self, an actor who no stranger to vuneralility and he compliments Swinton throughout the film, you can really tell he is such an easy actor to work with.
Another positive is that the film itself looks great, the use of colors in each scene, loads of reds. The film opens with Tilda Swintons character, obviously at a younger age, taking part in the famous annual tomato fight in Valencia and each shot is just filled with red. This is a strong reacuring color throughout the film for obvious reasons. That would be the work of Irish Cinematographer, Seamas MacGarvey, whose work we have seen before in the likes of Atonment & The Hours.
The performance by our leading man, our villian, Kevin, was a weird one, the actors name is Ezra Miller and unfortunately, I thought he was extremely missed cast. For a fifteen year old, he pulled off some performance but, I thought he was wrong for the part. He was simply too good looking for the part. I know that sounds stupid but I couldn't get it out of my head. He also gave the Kevin character way too much style, the character was dressed like Jim Morrison for pretty much the whole movie, with his loose fitting white shirt, tight trousers and a laired trendy hair doo. I just didn't buy it. It would of worked an awful lot better if Kevin was way more unasuming and, I don't know, subtle, more invisiable, nothing. They made him out to be this dark intraverted, mysterious rock star, who, if you ask me, is way too over developed for his age. He walks around a good portion of the film with his top off, abs and all out on show, it just didn't sit well with me, it was weird. I was shocked the young actor was fifteen when I checked it out after.



Listen this film is as 'Arthouse' as it gets, a lot of people will like it for the same reasons why I hated it. Its nasty, its depressing and you feel empty coming out of it. As I said earlier, I was hoping for some sort of revalation to justify me watch this film but it never came. I had made my conclusion as to where this film could be going in the first ten minutes of the film and I was spot on, except I thought something else unexpected was going to surprise me, but it never happened. It was exactly as I predicted.

I thought about it and I thought about it, what was this film about? And the most solid answer I could come up with was, that it is a film about fear of commitment, a fear of loosing your youth, the freedom of youth. The film opens with Tilda Swinton having a blast in this exotic place, she is free, she is happy. Kevin represents loosing that freedom. The reason why I thought this was, because I'm coming that age where these desisions are imminent. I'm 30, the twenties are gone, its time to take things seriously. Kevin is that, loosing the freedom of your youth and to pull this off, the director has used one of the most terrifying of commitments, have a child. If there is any deep meaning to it, I believe that is it.