We Need To Talk About Kevin
WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT KEVIN
Directed by Lynne Ramsey
Written by Lynne Ramsey & Rory Kinnear
Starring Tilda Swinton, Ezra Miller, John C. Reilly
Caution: not recommended for pregnant women.
Caution: not recommended for pregnant women.
This is a very good year for strong female leads. Kirsten Dunst turned heads at the Cannes Festival in the stunning Melancholia, and Meryl Streep is set to do the same very soon portraying Margaret Thatcher in The Iron Lady. The film adaptation of Lionel Shriver's award-winning novel We Need To Talk About Kevin gives Tilda Swinton centre stage and, in fact, most of the stage, in a dramatic thriller so uncomfortable and so fraught with tension that it will leave you quivering in your seat.
Swinton plays mother Eva Khatchadourian in two stages of her life, which alternately make up the film's plot progression - in the first she is living alone, broken and openly despised by the community around her, struggling to get by; in the second, she is her former self, a successful travel writer who falls in love, weds and gives birth to an intense, anti-social child (played by Rock Duer, Jasper Newall and the superb Ezra Miller respectively) who gradually makes her feel more and more alienated and frightened.
The novel was released in 2003, and the film optioned for funding two years after, and one wonders if the film would have had more relevance at that time. It holds parallels to with Gus Van Sant's similarly themed Elephant, and is likewise notable for its intriguing structure. Shriver's novel is formatted as a series of letters from Eva to her estranged husband Franklin after the story's conclusion, and the adaptation has done a fine job of balancing structural experimentation in line with the book and a thrilling traditional building of tension. It is a film that says everything by saying nothing - in many scenes, dialogue is minimal, and the more horrific a scene may seem, the less we see of it. Every action is played out against the striking visual metaphor of Eva cleaning splattered red paint off the front of her house. Ramsey understands - and underscores here - that the unspoken is what evokes the realm of nightmares.
The direction is confident, daring and frightening, and shines through in Swinton's ineffable performance. Bug-eyed and clearly emotionally shattered, Swinton's first appearances on screen mirror the faces of the audience as they leave, shaken. We witness many stages in Eva's life play out on screen, and Swinton carries the character through them effortlessly. For her to have remained in this alert and semi-paranoid state of mind for the duration of filming would have been a terribly draining act, but it is a worthy one. Her haunting performance keeps us on edge, as she is our cypher and in many ways our only hope. John C. Reilly's bouncy presence is far from comforting as he naively and joyously bumbles about, assuming fault on his wife's part but never on his children. The film acts as a portrait of a woman too afraid to cry wolf, because she knows that no one will listen to her anyway. The performances from every young member of cast are astounding - Duer's blank stare is immediately unsettling, and Newall is our first real cause for concern, yet it is Miller who dominates proceedings with an unbearable effortlessness.
It will be a travesty if this film is not nominated for Oscars in the categories of sound design and composition. There are not enough superlatives to describe the brilliance of Paul Davies' soul-crushing soundscapes which batter and wail and suddenly cease, leaving silences that leave the audience sunk in a mire of horror. Added to this masterful work is a soundtrack of chilling melancholy woven by Radiohead guitarist Jonny Greenwood, which the film simply could not do without. The cinematography takes care to isolate Swinton, harshly framing her, using lens flare, shake and obfuscation to conceal memories of joy.
There were a few times, though, where it became a little easy to question the parents' underwhelming reactions to their child's unpleasant behaviour. Bitter words go unpunished even when Kevin is an infant, and eventually Eva seems to lose hope of ever controlling his behaviour or curbing his vicious tongue. What is a common fear among many parents here translates to something more sinister, but the film is adamant that fault does not lie with the bewildered and bombstruck parent - rather, that Kevin is a creature that has crawled from the deeply set cracks in the social order, and his horrific actions are frighteningly unavoidable.
On leaving the cinema there were very few talking about Kevin - much like Eva, they were too stunned to speak, unravelled by the ordeal they had witnessed. A film with such historical precedent is hard to watch but truly vital, and is most honest and haunting in its statement that ultimately there are no answers and there is no point. If that is a notion you can stomach, then dare to step into Swinton's shoes and experience this harrowing exploration of maternity in crisis.
Swinton plays mother Eva Khatchadourian in two stages of her life, which alternately make up the film's plot progression - in the first she is living alone, broken and openly despised by the community around her, struggling to get by; in the second, she is her former self, a successful travel writer who falls in love, weds and gives birth to an intense, anti-social child (played by Rock Duer, Jasper Newall and the superb Ezra Miller respectively) who gradually makes her feel more and more alienated and frightened.
The novel was released in 2003, and the film optioned for funding two years after, and one wonders if the film would have had more relevance at that time. It holds parallels to with Gus Van Sant's similarly themed Elephant, and is likewise notable for its intriguing structure. Shriver's novel is formatted as a series of letters from Eva to her estranged husband Franklin after the story's conclusion, and the adaptation has done a fine job of balancing structural experimentation in line with the book and a thrilling traditional building of tension. It is a film that says everything by saying nothing - in many scenes, dialogue is minimal, and the more horrific a scene may seem, the less we see of it. Every action is played out against the striking visual metaphor of Eva cleaning splattered red paint off the front of her house. Ramsey understands - and underscores here - that the unspoken is what evokes the realm of nightmares.
The direction is confident, daring and frightening, and shines through in Swinton's ineffable performance. Bug-eyed and clearly emotionally shattered, Swinton's first appearances on screen mirror the faces of the audience as they leave, shaken. We witness many stages in Eva's life play out on screen, and Swinton carries the character through them effortlessly. For her to have remained in this alert and semi-paranoid state of mind for the duration of filming would have been a terribly draining act, but it is a worthy one. Her haunting performance keeps us on edge, as she is our cypher and in many ways our only hope. John C. Reilly's bouncy presence is far from comforting as he naively and joyously bumbles about, assuming fault on his wife's part but never on his children. The film acts as a portrait of a woman too afraid to cry wolf, because she knows that no one will listen to her anyway. The performances from every young member of cast are astounding - Duer's blank stare is immediately unsettling, and Newall is our first real cause for concern, yet it is Miller who dominates proceedings with an unbearable effortlessness.
It will be a travesty if this film is not nominated for Oscars in the categories of sound design and composition. There are not enough superlatives to describe the brilliance of Paul Davies' soul-crushing soundscapes which batter and wail and suddenly cease, leaving silences that leave the audience sunk in a mire of horror. Added to this masterful work is a soundtrack of chilling melancholy woven by Radiohead guitarist Jonny Greenwood, which the film simply could not do without. The cinematography takes care to isolate Swinton, harshly framing her, using lens flare, shake and obfuscation to conceal memories of joy.
There were a few times, though, where it became a little easy to question the parents' underwhelming reactions to their child's unpleasant behaviour. Bitter words go unpunished even when Kevin is an infant, and eventually Eva seems to lose hope of ever controlling his behaviour or curbing his vicious tongue. What is a common fear among many parents here translates to something more sinister, but the film is adamant that fault does not lie with the bewildered and bombstruck parent - rather, that Kevin is a creature that has crawled from the deeply set cracks in the social order, and his horrific actions are frighteningly unavoidable.
On leaving the cinema there were very few talking about Kevin - much like Eva, they were too stunned to speak, unravelled by the ordeal they had witnessed. A film with such historical precedent is hard to watch but truly vital, and is most honest and haunting in its statement that ultimately there are no answers and there is no point. If that is a notion you can stomach, then dare to step into Swinton's shoes and experience this harrowing exploration of maternity in crisis.
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