Review: ‘We Need to Talk About Kevin’

The front-running contender for best film of 2012 in my opinion, and perhaps the best film of the last four or five years.

It has been 9 years since Lynne Ramsay’s last film, Morvern Callar, hit the screen. Here again she has based her script on a novel, this time by Lionel Shriver. It is a chilling, claustrophobic film about guilt, responsibility and motherhood.

Using a non-linear timeline forces the audience to piece together the film’s events. Tilda Swinton is extraordinary as Eva, the mother who is forced to live with the guilt and pain inflicted by her son when he went on a killing spree at school. Unsure if she is responsible for the heinous crime, she relives her life with Kevin, to see if she can find the moment where he turned into a monster.

By showing us only the moments that haunt her, Ramsey places us fully in Eve’s head. It is not a comfortable place to be. This is a woman in pain, a woman who is willing to accept a slap from a stranger on the street without making a sound. Her exploration of her past shows us she was not the most patient of mothers, but neither was Kevin the easiest of children. Mothers will respond to her plight.

This is not an easy film to watch, but it is a rewarding one. Visually stylish, and featuring a menacing performance from Ezra Miller as Kevin, alongside a devastating one from Swinton, Ramsey has once again made a film that will linger in the mind long after the lights come up.

10/10