We Need to Talk About Kevin (2011)

We Need To Talk About Kevin was extremely impressive, especially given the very challenging nature of adapting its source material. While the book had great thematic elements, the tone and style were not gripping and kept it from being a really atmospheric tale. Ramsay blows it out of the water by using nonlinear time effectively and delivering emotion and intensity in each scene. I think what made this a great movie for me was: even though I had read the book and knew what happened, I couldn't check out or look away for any scene, because each detail of each scene was meticulously designed and had nuance to it. Swinton does deliver an exceptional, subtle performance in the lead, and though it threw me off at first, I love Ramsay's minute changes to Kevin's character, which make him seem much more realistic as a child and not just a possessed, purely evil child from birth. Many of the larger questions asked by this film are implied, not explicitly stated. I also liked the waiting for the reveal of what Kevin actually did, rather than stating it early on without suspense as the book did. This is a great movie with tension in each scene.

Having had 5 children AND a software engineering career, I know how hard it is to raise children AND have a career and of course, you are always conflicted. This woman is a complete dolt, unforgivingly forgiving her monster son for blinding in one eye, their daughter and staying with the dolt of a husband who blindly favors his son, never blaming him for anything. Wonder how much truth there is with the school shooters. But only the Conn. kid killed his mom first. Wish I knew how similar this story is to the actual school shootings.Tilda Swinton at least plays the mother as a low self esteem creep, emotionally dependent upon her egotistical husband, pulled screaming AND KICKING INTO MOTHERHOOD.

The primary problem with the story is that the novelist, screenplay writers, director, and audience don't understand parenting a psychopath. If you haven't born and raised your own psychopath, don't write about or direct it. The lack of authenticity comes from this primary problem. The other problems are in the randomly sequenced, redundant scenes, and extremely slow pace.

The thing that bothered me the most about the story is the fact that the parents never held Kevin accountable for anything that he did, ever! It seemed like no matter how awful it got, they just let it go over and over again. I'm not entirely sure how he could pour chemicals into his sister's eye and get away with it with absolutely zero repercussions. I mean, she would have been screaming and in horrible pain, but she acted like she wasn't even upset about it or even remotely afraid of her abusive older brother. And why did the parents just let him call his sister stupid all the time? Normal parents would not stand for that! And as his actions get progressively more violent, they continue to just let everything go without ever saying anything. I mean, the guinea pig thing...really? She's just going to let that go without saying anything to anybody, particularly Kevin? What kind of parent would never once try to correct a child who is so cruel and destructive and violent and never shows any remorse? I haven't read the book, so I'm wondering if maybe the book portrays the mother a bit differently than the movie. I couldn't understand how she could be so weak. She basically allowed him to do what he did. She should have gotten psychiatric help for him years ago. He belonged in an inpatient treatment center of some kind. I felt sorry for her in a way, but in other ways she infuriated me. Overall it was well acted and visually interesting, but very dark subject matter. I don't mind dark subject matter when I can sympathize with the good guys, but in this case it was sometimes hard to sympathize with the mother since she never did the obvious things to try to get him to stop doing the things he was doing, never even once told him that he shouldn't do those things!