At first glance, it would seem that Kevin is yet another installment in the pantheon of post-modern films intent upon assaulting the human desire to give meaning to the world. David Badash. According to medical practitioners, psychopaths are born so, while sociopathy is a result of conditioning in childhood. Don't comment just to troll/provoke. Some interpreted scene at the gym as her being repulsed by pregnant bodies, but I am thinking she was like "why can't I be happy and bubbly with this child like they are?" She is less interested in the nature vs nurture debate, more in the crippling weight of societal expectations of motherhood. Directed by Lynne Ramsay, "We Need to Talk About Kevin" is fragments of time, jagged and confusing, lurching around inside her mind. Super-Hero partners Scott Lang (Paul Rudd) and Hope van Dyne (Evangeline Lilly) return to continue their adventures as Ant-Man and the Wasp. For removal of copyrighted images, trademarks, or other issues, Contact Us. Kevin's mother struggles to love her strange child, despite the increasingly dangerous things he says and does as he grows up. It must be something like this to have a nervous breakdown. When he is interviewed on TV, a reflection of Eva's face on the screen is overlaid on his. From here he becomes a sociopathic teen with a rather keen interest in archery. Kevin is seen to be wearing short clothes most of the time, like when Eva takes him out for mini-golfing. But her expression is one of strained indifference. The real monster is expecting nothing less than unconditional love. See production, box office & company info. Best Little Sites is not liable for inaccuracies, errors, or omissions found herein. The opening shot fades to white, before cutting to a sea of red in the next sequence, foreshadowing the bloodshed to come. Kevin examines both our darkest moments and those slivers of Grace that sustain us. There are two really great examples of this: the first is the bow. The story goes back to the past to recreate the events that led Eva to her present discontent. The victims of those who go out with a bang are miniscule in comparison to the number who go out (extinguish themselves) in solitude with nary a whimper. Her public perception is unlikely to change, but Eva appears firm in her choice to stick around for Kevin's sake. If you look one level deeper it's clear that Kevin was deeply and horribly emotionally abused by both of his parents, and in a genuinely loving family he would not have turned out the way he did. It is a world where any attempts to offer a message of mercy, conversion and redemption must be done deftly and authentically, because at the end of the day, sometimes the community wont rally around you and more often than not Mr. Potter carries the day. Neither parent punishes him or seeks outside help, leaving him to his own devices. Eva Khatchadourian, a former travelogue writer, lives in a rundown shack in an American suburb and goes to meet her son. He proves it when he poops himself twice in a row and she breaks his arm in a fit of rage, what he calls, "The most honest thing you ever did to me." The most cynical, nihilistic, misanthropic films ever made. Votes are used to help determine the most interesting content on RYM. Cookies help us deliver our Services. After you see the film, think about it. KATY: I kind of saw Jentorra as someone who was already part of a warrior society, so maybe she was used to fighting already, but in kind of a way different level. The point here is not to understand Kevin at all. Though unlike the Shakespearean character, the question of Evas guilt has a lot less cut-and-dried answer. For full Oscars coverage and commentary by its reviewer, Fr. Like a fluke, nothing to do with her personality or her hubby's personality? otakucode 11 yr. ago We learn that Kevin was a difficult, colicky baby, who grew up to be a difficult, problematic child who seemingly refuses to toilet train, despite a rather surprising vocabulary. I got to try some fight choreo, but all in all, yeah, it helped me prepare, I will say I was much more excited to be a good guy instead of a lame, side character, bad guy. Kids banging on the door on Halloween in the present evokes a memory of young Kevin throwing all his food at the fridge. Privacy Policy. We cling to guidelines like the length of Tilda Swinton 's hair to figure out where we are. Eva often looks like she's in a state of shock. The kid was screaming nonstop from the go, as infant. Copyright 2023. Alec Baldwin has been charged in the southwest state of New Mexico for manslaughter and faces an 18-month prison sentence, as does the film's armourer Hannah Gutierrez-Reed. In reality, Kevin has an acquired taste for sadistic vengeance, and the lychee symbolizes Celias eye in the scene. The condition causes loss of the ability to understand or express speech. A prolific writer and the ostensible head of a travel agency, Eva cares more about her own unfulfilled wishes than her ever-menacing son. It doesn't gel with what has come before, where Eva seems to accept her son's innate cruelty, and is looking for a way to escape. We Need to Talk About Kevin is already playing in NYC; it opens today in LA, Chicago, Houston and Phoenix and is rolling out nationwide. While Eva is growing increasingly distrustful of Kevin, Franklin sides with his son and their marriage takes a hit. About Press Copyright Contact us Creators Advertise Developers Terms Privacy Policy & Safety How YouTube works Test new features Press Copyright Contact us Creators . We had a lot more time to prepare for the character, had a lot more time to delve into the script and the role wasn't just like, you know, here's four pages, learn it by tonight, you know? The two embrace, and then she walks away. Starring: Tilda Swinton, Ezra Miller, John C. Reilly. Eva repeatedly tries and fails to create a bond with her son according to traditional societal expectations. Kevin eats the lychee with a degree of grossness, and when his mother says that he never liked lychee as a fruit, Kevin has to say that it is an acquired taste. Eva's point of view is obviously not reliable, and her segments are intended to portray that she's entered a cycle of deep self-abuse over having raised a psychopath. The most plausible answer is that Kevin killed the family to hurt his mother. Three days before his 16th birthday, Kevin Khatchadourian (Ezra Miller) kills several students, a teacher and a cafeteria worker in his high school gymnasium. So what about Franklin? By contrast with Elephant's oddly diffident lyricism, We Need To Talk About Kevin's expressionistic naturalism has a roiling, post-traumatic nonlinearity. Between the ages of 6 and 8 years old, played by Jasper Newell, he is a clever little monster who glares at Eva hurtfully, soils his pants deliberately and drives her into such a fury that she breaks his arm. We find ourselves inside the mind of a woman whose psychopathic son has driven her over the edge. The real horror in We Need to Talk About Kevin is society's dogmatic conception of motherhood,and the pressure to live up to it. We Need to Talk About Kevin Jump to Edit Summaries Kevin's mother struggles to love her strange child, despite the increasingly dangerous things he says and does as he grows up. The flaws of this largely overwrought story belong not so much to Ramsay as filmmaker as to Shriver's source novel. Also read:Author Lionel Shriver on her early writing, politics, essential reading list and persevering out of 'sheer spite'. In 1975, he won the Pulitzer Prize for distinguished criticism. Directed by Lynne Ramsey All of the performances are secondary to an urgently compelling narrative that is both agonizing to witness and impossible to look away from. Rated the #74 best film of 2011, and #5264 in the greatest all-time movies (according to RYM users). However, we dont really know why Kevin kills his family. It seems that Kevin wears old and small clothes to bring her mothers neglect to the worlds attention. 112 minutes An unshakeable experience and a daring experiment in film form, Lynne Ramsay's We Need to Talk About Kevin challenged conventional wisdom on what makes for a good adaptation. Starting with Eva - she is intentionally painting herself in the worst possible light, which ironically covers up the actual extent of her emotional abuse, since she is flagellating herself only for the worst moments of her parenthood - the lowlights - and not looking at the whole picture. Shortly after, Eva goes back to the house. Top Films of the 2010s as voted for by RYM (2021/Final edition), NEW TOURNAMENT: [PPE] RYM Picks the Most Outstanding Acting Performances in Cinematic History, Top Films of the 2010s as voted for by RYM (2020 edition), Top Films of the 2010s as voted for by RYM (2019 edition), Dark/Sinister films that have upbeat music during the credits, Top Films of the 2010s as voted for by RYM (2018 edition), RYM's Preferred Female Performances: 2011, Top Films of the 2010s as voted for by RYM (2017 edition), United Kingdom, United States, 35mm, Color, Dolby Stereo, Literary Adaptation, Artificial Eye, Code Red, Oscilloscope Pictures. The real monster is expecting nothing less than unconditional love. While Eva and Franklin argue over the accident, Kevin taunts his mother by peeling a litchi, with a smug look on his face. His son is who Franklin says he is, and anything else is just invisible. Kevin was not necessarily abused or tortured as a child, many kids endure much worse and did not end up as mass killers. Eva takes incessant trips down memory lane to cope with her past loss. ", Did Kevin internalize her hatred of him, or is she just feeding into his innate instability? With Tilda Swinton, John C. Reilly, Ezra Miller, Jasper Newell. It's so convincing that it has the opposite effect on us, convincing us of her innocence and her son's innate evil - how could someone so pitiful, so sorrowful, so emotionally sensitive be responsible for the development of a totally psychopathic mind? Kevin is a defiant baby who screams incessantly but never around Franklin. Not sure I get the fuss about this one. These people live there, but they've never moved in. It discloses its narrative fitfully, in snatches and gobbets that make sense only gradually, like the . Kevin was never the apple of his mothers eye, which he realized from early childhood. Stripping the screenplay off words, the disturbance arises from a seamless amalgamation of image and sound. An important film that attempts to delve into the psychology behind the high school massacres we seem to read about in the news on a weekly basis. Maybe everything else is intended to be a flashback, and the timeline begins when she finds out what Kevin did at his high school. I think that she and Jentorra had a huge past together. From the beginning, Eva is detached from motherhood. March 1, 2023, 6:00 a.m. Copyright | Eva is entirely bound by the expectations of a culture that fetishizes the mommy and insists upon a particular quality and dynamic in order for relationships to be healthy and normative. An early scene shows Eva apparently participating in an orgy in a lake of blood. Trademark | The cast ensemble, with Tilda Swinton, John C. Reilly, and Ezra Miller in a menacing role, cannot be praised enough. Putting herself through a painful process of introspection, she revisits moments from well before Kevin's birth to the eventual tragedy. The truth to motherhood is a harsh one. For those of us in the northern hemisphere, we have officially entered the dead of winter that time after Christmas and New Years when, Earlier this year my home parish welcomed a new associate pastor. With his shaggy hair buzzed off and scars covering his pale face, Kevin avoids her eyes and replies, "I used to think I knew. As a baby and toddler, he is merely colicky, irritating and would try the patience of a saint. By accepting all cookies, you agree to our use of cookies to deliver and maintain our services and site, improve the quality of Reddit, personalize Reddit content and advertising, and measure the effectiveness of advertising. One may ask how one of the main instincts of every living thing, the need to reproduce, could be frightful. Kevin, it seems, has a method to his madness. He's aware of her feelings toward him, and throughout the film, points them out. Site Map | Franklin himself lives in a state of demented decency, deceiving himself that his family are living acceptable lives. Evas struggle to connect with Kevin only deepens with age. By. They never talk about Kevin. She created a relationship which encouraged him to act out as horribly as possible to get the most honest reactions from her, because she only ever showed him her real emotions when she was disgusted. Kevin does things to Eva in this movie that are so cruel that an evil demon seems to be regarding her from his eyes. The film opens to the sounds of sprinklers tch-tch-ing, before the first shot reveals a half-open patio door whose curtains are wafting with the wind. All the community rules apply here. Directed by: Lynne Ramsay. In an ordinary movie, there would be scenes in classrooms, meetings with counselors, heart-to-heart discussions between the parents. I bring what is actually happening and the severity of what's actually happening to level out, I guess, this part of the movie, because on the other side, you got Kang and Janet are being very, very serious too on that side of things. She obviously feels complicit and takes on the role of communal scapegoat as a way to expiate her own guilt as well as to grieve the loss of her family. ROHAN: Was there anything major cut that you remember shooting? Prosecutors downgrade charges in Alec Baldwin shooting case, Die Hard star Bruce Willis has frontotemporal dementia, condition worsens, As We Need to Talk about Kevin turns 10, a look at what made it such a haunting meditation on motherhood. Franklin, on the other hand, does not give him a path to honest interactions. Speaking with O'Brian following the film's release, she shared her experience on working on the biggest project of her career and how she and director Peyton Reed crafted an elaborate backstory for the leader of the rebellion. Each rewatch only feels more rewarding because Ramsay is so pure and gifted a filmmaker she rattles and revises our preconceptions of what a movie and yes, mother too can be. Kevin has numerous reasons to hate his mother, Eva. This terrifying South Korean found footage horror movie directed by Jung Bum-shik follows an internet broadcaster who reunites a team of . Children seldom get that attention, though. This is the scene where the film begins and the ending comes full circle revisiting the moment of rupture in Evas life. So to sum up, Eva systematically deprived Kevin of maternal love, then trained him to accept disgust and fear in its place. 2003-2023 Best Little Sites, LLC. So, his dressing sense is perhaps not an indictment of his bitterness. The novel explores themes of nihilism, motherhood, the relationship between violence and depravity, and much more. But the two most significant and poignant moments are found at the end of the film, when the 18-year-old Kevin, two years into a prison sentence for a heinous incident at his high school (yes, its as bad as you think), responds to his mothers query as to why he did what he did. Together, with Hopes parents Janet van Dyne (Michelle Pfeiffer) and Hank Pym (Michael Douglas), and Scotts daughter Cassie Lang (Kathryn Newton), the family finds themselves exploring the Quantum Realm, interacting with strange new creatures and embarking on an adventure that will push them beyond the limits of what they thought possible. Franklin's story is simpler but in some ways I think it's worse. Kevin's insidious nature is best exemplified in a scene staged in the aftermath of Celia losing her eye. As a portrait of a deteriorating state of mind, "We Need to Talk About Kevin" is a masterful film. At one point, she mockingly. Theres a possibility that maybe before all this happened that there was that naivete to Jentorra, but yeah, I don't know that she was re-inspired by Cassies energy, I guess, as much as like, Hey, this is the real world and you need to kind of catch up to where we are.. I'd be happy to see what they come up with, but, they have more of the understanding of the wildness of the world that they're building. Rated R By using our Services, you agree to our use of cookies. Three days before turning 16, Kevin unleashes chaos in his school. The result is that Franklin completely deprives Kevin of proper care - not only mental healthcare, but any other kind of care. Indeed, Kevin is a relentless film that gives its audience few opportunities to come up for air from the depths of anguish to which it plummets. Be respectful! He can't understand her, but don't you suppose he understands her dislike? KATY: It was really different, obviously, than the comic book version. The camera zooms in, but the scene cuts just before we can get a peek on what's on the other side of it. Sign up for weekly updates from Busted Halo! Apparently even before he began to talk, Kevin made a vow to punish Eva for her feelings. Instead, maternal ambivalence is coded as horror. His final act of brutality a school massacre in addition to murdering his father and sister destroys any semblance of normalcy for Eva. There are two really great examples of this: the first is the bow. Does Eva's open contempt for Kevin drive him to darkness? Maternal ambivalence turns into filial antagonism, colouring her perception of him as inherently evil. Thats the underlying message of We Need to Talk about Kevin, Lynne Ramseys remarkable allegory on the transcendent nature of relationships. Ironically he becomes a miniature doppelganger of her, all sharp angles and androgynous countenance lying in direct contrast to the lovably rounded and craggy features of his father. This cycle is beautifully written and acted by Swinton, so much that you can't help but empathize with her despite her own assurances that every drop of blood her son ever spilt is on her hands, an image weaved throughout the movie. The non-linear approach makes the somewhat inevitable events more powerful and though Miller is effective as Kevin, younger actor Newell actually impressed me even more. Following the release of Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, we caught up with actress Katy O'Brian to talk about her MCU debut as Jentorra, deleted scenes with Bill Murray, and a whole lot more! He is her., Her identity forever defined by the horrors inflicted by her son, Evas punishment is her loneliness. Haunted by the past, Eva's memories are triggered by sounds, objects and everyday minutiae. Author Lionel Shriver on her early writing, politics, essential reading list and persevering out of 'sheer spite'. The most horrendous thing for her to stomach is not that his misanthropy and violence is really exotic and foreign; the thing that is really horrendous is that she recognises it only too well, because it comes from her. 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