rickcote Review of We Need to Talk About Kevin

We Need to Talk About Kevin (2011)

extraordinary filmmaking, very disturbing

[9/10 · 25 September 2011]

I saw this film at Telluride by the Sea (Portsmouth, NH) prior to its general release. This is not a film I would choose to see normally, based on its subject matter. However, as a festival-goer, this was what was offered for the late evening screening. This film is visually stunning, and masterfully composed. You know early-on that a Columbine-style ending is inevitable, nonetheless hope that some miracle may yet occur to avert this disaster. Swinton is absolutely magnificent (as always) as the mother desperately trying to cope with raising a psychopathic child, but equally impressive are the performances of the actors who portray the developmental stages of Kevin from early childhood to the brink of adulthood. What elevates this film is the visual and musical narrative that accompanies the initial time-skipping introduction and then the more linear progression of Kevin's growth to its final, terrible conclusion. Interestingly, the emotional crescendo of the film occurs not near the end when Kevin carries out his horrific violence, but rather in the middle of the film at moments when we observe the impossibility of living a "normal" family life with a child who is incapable of feeling or expressing the human emotions that bind us together.