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The age-old debate of nature vs. nurture gets an unsettling examination in We Need to Talk About Kevin, British filmmaker Lynne Ramsey’s adaptation of Lionel Shriver’s best-selling novel of the same name.
While the nature vs. nurture discussion typically initiates with hopes of understanding an individual’s cute little personality traits or peculiar habits, in We Need to Talk About Kevin, it’s specifically about whether a child can be born evil. Not “writing on the wall with crayons” evil or “cutting off Barbie’s head” evil. We’re talking “what might happen when Rosemary’s baby grows-up” evil.
The story is about the troubling relationship that develops between Eva (Tilda Swinton) and her son Kevin (played as a teenager by Ezra Miller), who commits a horrific act of violence in the film’s finale. Propelled into a smoldering sense of guilt and shame, Eva is left to reconcile her role in Kevin’s homicidal actions. We’ve seen films before that deal with the events surrounding horrific tragedies and the lasting aftermath on the public, victims, and friends. But rarely have we ever experienced such a revealing look at the effect on the other victims… the perpetrator’s family. This is a mother’s story.
As we first meet her, Eva is removing red paint from the siding of her house; lasting graffiti from unknown attackers. Her moves about town are met with burning stares and even physical assaults. Clearly not welcome in her own town, Eva is trying to put her life back together again.
Via a series of beautifully illustrated flashbacks, we’re threaded through the events that led to Eva’s eventual unraveling. Even as early as his infancy, it was clear something wasn’t quite right with Kevin (Rock Duer). He cries incessantly, often fixing on his mother with a devilish stare. He poops his diaper with a malicious giggle and as a young teenager, he continues to masturbate fiendishly even after she accidentally walks in on him. Kevin is destructive, vicious, evil. When a baby sister arrives, the viciousness – at worst enabled by his mother, written off as a “phase” by his father (John C. Reilly) – slowly turns to violence. By film’s end, Ramsey’s fractured narrative has taken us on a slowly disentangling downward spiral that eventually ends with the haunting familiarity of the violent destination that awaits.
Ramsey’s strong use of symbolism gives the film a soothing sense of beauty that swathes the impending doom in a comforting glow. The film is at its best in its first hour or so, when it is most daring. In the opening scenes we see Eva’s dream of being carried heroically aloft in the Spanish La Tomatina tomato festival - her body and the streets running red with crushed tomatoes. She awakens to the real-life nightmare of scrubbing red paint from her house. Doom is foreshadowed throughout the movie by transitions to oozing strawberry jelly or globs of bright crimson ketchup which meld into flashing red emergency vehicle lights. Baby Kevin’s cries turn into wailing sirens. Ramsey’s film is far removed from biting social commentary - and forget the accusations of misogyny that suggest the mother is the cause of Kevin’s sociopathic behavior. Ramsey instead presents us with a provocative moral ambiguity which builds to a chilling, unforgettable climax.
We Need to Talk About Kevin is a gripping film, but also one that is sometimes grueling and difficult to watch due to its subject matter. Swinton mesmerizes with her brilliant performance as a mother left to absorb the ravages of a sociopathic son. Many families, especially those who have been touched by tragedy, will hopefully be prompted to further family discussion. But as the title suggests, many certainly won’t.
MPAA Rating: 
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