I thought I was going to be watching an Omen type typical horror movie. Couldn't really tell from the wardrobe and the way cars and things looked what year it was...looked like it took place in the 90's since no one had a smart phone at any point.
Anyway.... I digress.... LOL. Overall I found the movie entertaining. Some questions weren't answered. The pacing had me super anxious for the story to unfold...what the hell was up with Kevin??? What did he do? The soundtrack was unsettling to a little annoying. There were no jump scares or horror movie music hat tricks that let you sense what's about to happen or take note of something. Aside from random folk songs here and there the movie is utterly quiet.
OK...so spoiler time.
At some point in the film i'm like okay... When TF are they going to have the "we need to talk about Kevin" conversation???? And then I laughed to myself,.....and thought..."ah-ha! Never happened" therein lying a huge part of the problem.
One reviewer wrote, that he thought it was stupid because no child is born evil, and no parent would have handled a child who behaved this way so poorly. I beg to differ and offer examples such as Jeffrey Dahlmer, who was quoted as saying, "I had a normal loving childhood, my parents are not to be blamed for what I have done.... I am just evil." And don't even get me started on what could lead a child to execute any number of the mass school shootings that seem to occur monthly here in the United States. A child, aside from being exceptionally smart, can be atypically cold, unsympathetic, calculating and cruel but the question is why?
There was definitely some serious and obscure hard to pin point problems with Kevin. He wasn't autistic, but it was something not to far off like maybe Asberger's Syndrome. His mental problem apple didn't fall far from its tree. When this movie ended I turned around and watched it again looking a bit closer for the answer to my unanswered questions.
Quite frankly, there is such a thing as poor parenting due to lack of experience, common sense, priorities, coping skills, selfishness and denial. Newsflash... just because a person is capable of producing a child doesn't necessarily mean they should given certain circumstances. It was clear that the mother was not thrilled with this pregnancy. They say normally a pregnant woman glows, it is an amazing experience yada yada yada, but this clearly wasn't Mommer's experience. The birthing experience didn't seem to go well at all, and immediately after Kevin's born, she appears to be suffering from postpartum depression which develops in a lot of women after child birth.
It seems while Kevin was a very tiny baby and small child Mommer didn't cope well with or ever bond with Kevin. In Kevin's defense, a baby can't have a personal vendetta against someone.....or could he???? LOL.
Honestly after rewatching this movie looking at it again I noticed maternal anti-social personality traits in the mother. Mommer was definitely off a little herself as far as having the same traits that Kevin exhibited which were lack of emotion and sympathy, also she herself was also reluctant to communicate. No normal person could have dealt with the aftermath the way she did. Mommer completely failed Kevin as there was at no point any outreach for help, therapy or intervention of any kind. She had the money, which meant she could have easily obtained those resources for Kevin.
Mommer and Kevin both seemed to resent each other but it seemed to me she began to resent him starting from when he was an unborn fetus. Maybe those feelings of resentment during Kevin's early life stage as an unborn child played a huge and detrimental part in Keven's early childhood development. Maybe that's when those seeds were planted before he was born. Maybe his behavior was a little payback for never feeling loved.
Kevin at an early age was very intelligent and calculating having the upper hand on Mommer. No parent should let a child assume the role of telling the parent what to do and the parent be looking to the child for direction and approval. That routine proved to be a huge disservice to Kevin and everyone else in the wake of his final epic act of detachment. I think there are a lot of little "Kevins" brewing in today's society from a combination of any number of anti-social personality disorders be it from poor genetics, subjectively poor environment or poor parenting skills.
The only thing I didn't quite get was why the community with the exception of one wheelchair bound kid from the neighborhood had no sympathy for Mommer in the the aftermath. The story wasn't developed enough to know why they felt she was directly responsible for Kevin's actions aside from giving him the opportunity to be born. I mean hay, I would assume that any kid that does what Kevin enacted was somehow failed by his parents, but I don't know, maybe people would react this way?
Maybe that's something we could never know unless we found ourselves being in a perfect storm situation like Mommer. No one really knows what it's like for the parents of these kids who have committed these types of atrocities after the 10 o'clock news has moved on to the next big story. These people may still have to live in their homes, go to their jobs, deal with looks, whispers, assumptions and accusations from their neighbors and locals in the community who haven't so quickly forgotten. Especially survivors, friends and relatives of the recently dearly departed victims.
Anyway....this was definitely a march to the beat of a different drummer type film in a lot of ways, but it was an interesting piece of entertainment.
Anyway.... I digress.... LOL. Overall I found the movie entertaining. Some questions weren't answered. The pacing had me super anxious for the story to unfold...what the hell was up with Kevin??? What did he do? The soundtrack was unsettling to a little annoying. There were no jump scares or horror movie music hat tricks that let you sense what's about to happen or take note of something. Aside from random folk songs here and there the movie is utterly quiet.
OK...so spoiler time.
At some point in the film i'm like okay... When TF are they going to have the "we need to talk about Kevin" conversation???? And then I laughed to myself,.....and thought..."ah-ha! Never happened" therein lying a huge part of the problem.
One reviewer wrote, that he thought it was stupid because no child is born evil, and no parent would have handled a child who behaved this way so poorly. I beg to differ and offer examples such as Jeffrey Dahlmer, who was quoted as saying, "I had a normal loving childhood, my parents are not to be blamed for what I have done.... I am just evil." And don't even get me started on what could lead a child to execute any number of the mass school shootings that seem to occur monthly here in the United States. A child, aside from being exceptionally smart, can be atypically cold, unsympathetic, calculating and cruel but the question is why?
There was definitely some serious and obscure hard to pin point problems with Kevin. He wasn't autistic, but it was something not to far off like maybe Asberger's Syndrome. His mental problem apple didn't fall far from its tree. When this movie ended I turned around and watched it again looking a bit closer for the answer to my unanswered questions.
Quite frankly, there is such a thing as poor parenting due to lack of experience, common sense, priorities, coping skills, selfishness and denial. Newsflash... just because a person is capable of producing a child doesn't necessarily mean they should given certain circumstances. It was clear that the mother was not thrilled with this pregnancy. They say normally a pregnant woman glows, it is an amazing experience yada yada yada, but this clearly wasn't Mommer's experience. The birthing experience didn't seem to go well at all, and immediately after Kevin's born, she appears to be suffering from postpartum depression which develops in a lot of women after child birth.
It seems while Kevin was a very tiny baby and small child Mommer didn't cope well with or ever bond with Kevin. In Kevin's defense, a baby can't have a personal vendetta against someone.....or could he???? LOL.
Honestly after rewatching this movie looking at it again I noticed maternal anti-social personality traits in the mother. Mommer was definitely off a little herself as far as having the same traits that Kevin exhibited which were lack of emotion and sympathy, also she herself was also reluctant to communicate. No normal person could have dealt with the aftermath the way she did. Mommer completely failed Kevin as there was at no point any outreach for help, therapy or intervention of any kind. She had the money, which meant she could have easily obtained those resources for Kevin.
Mommer and Kevin both seemed to resent each other but it seemed to me she began to resent him starting from when he was an unborn fetus. Maybe those feelings of resentment during Kevin's early life stage as an unborn child played a huge and detrimental part in Keven's early childhood development. Maybe that's when those seeds were planted before he was born. Maybe his behavior was a little payback for never feeling loved.
Kevin at an early age was very intelligent and calculating having the upper hand on Mommer. No parent should let a child assume the role of telling the parent what to do and the parent be looking to the child for direction and approval. That routine proved to be a huge disservice to Kevin and everyone else in the wake of his final epic act of detachment. I think there are a lot of little "Kevins" brewing in today's society from a combination of any number of anti-social personality disorders be it from poor genetics, subjectively poor environment or poor parenting skills.
The only thing I didn't quite get was why the community with the exception of one wheelchair bound kid from the neighborhood had no sympathy for Mommer in the the aftermath. The story wasn't developed enough to know why they felt she was directly responsible for Kevin's actions aside from giving him the opportunity to be born. I mean hay, I would assume that any kid that does what Kevin enacted was somehow failed by his parents, but I don't know, maybe people would react this way?
Maybe that's something we could never know unless we found ourselves being in a perfect storm situation like Mommer. No one really knows what it's like for the parents of these kids who have committed these types of atrocities after the 10 o'clock news has moved on to the next big story. These people may still have to live in their homes, go to their jobs, deal with looks, whispers, assumptions and accusations from their neighbors and locals in the community who haven't so quickly forgotten. Especially survivors, friends and relatives of the recently dearly departed victims.
Anyway....this was definitely a march to the beat of a different drummer type film in a lot of ways, but it was an interesting piece of entertainment.