We Need To Talk About Kevin is a harrowing film. I’m not really sure what other words I can use to describe it. It’s not “scary”. But it’s definitely an experience that sticks with you.
The film is about a mom reflecting on her relationship with her son as he grows up to be a teenager. Of course, he’s not a normal kid, there wouldn’t be a movie if he was. But Kevin, the kid in question, is pure hell-spawn.
When he’s a toddler, he’s already antagonistic towards his mother. She’s passing him the a ball, saying stuff like “Pass it to mommy! Come on Kevin!” and he just stares at her as the plastic ball bounces against his leg. She does it like 6 times, and he doesn’t react at all. Then on the next time, he sends it back! She’s so elated and praises him for being so smart, then rolls it back. It bounces off his leg while he stares her dead in the eyes.
I don’t know exactly how old he is during this next point, but he’s walking and still in diapers. His mom is attempting to teach him to count, asking him, “What comes after 3?” He says 9. “What comes after 7?” “71.” Then he just counts from 1 to 50 as quick as he can, finishing with, “Now can we quit?” Frustrated, she writes down a complicated addition problem, adding, “There, you can add that together since you think you’re so smart.” He crumples it up and throws it behind his head.
He then begins to make a strange face while contorting his lips, staring her down.
She inhales. “You did not.”
Of course, he had. He laughs.
She changes his diaper, obviously frustrated. She picks him up off the changing table and sets him on the ground. Just as he’s about to leave the room, he stands still and tenses up his arms. He turns around, and just like before, he stares at her.
Even more frustrated, she hastily picks him up and throws him on the changing table. Except she misses. She just throws him on the ground. Cut to him staring at her, holding his arm.
It’s an awful scene. It’s not terrifying or anything, like I said, this movie isn’t scary. But man, it really makes you sympathize with Eva. She obviously didn’t mean to throw him to the ground, or even mean to pick him up so roughly. But I can’t even imagine what it’d be like to have a kid like that. Someone who’s so young, yet holds such resentment.
Sympathy is evoked a lot in this movie. The movie is framed as Eva remembering moments from when Kevin was younger, so there’s a lot of scenes of her in the present. And her life is hell.
She’s no longer married, she’s no longer with her kids (Kevin and his sister Celia), and people around town HATE her. There’s a couple of scenes throughout the film where random pedestrians or coworkers show obvious contempt towards Eva. One of the worst is when she’s approached by a guy that’s hitting on her at work. She doesn’t seem too offput by him, but she doesn’t seem to hate him either. During a party, he comes up to her and asks if she wants to dance. She, for one reason or another, declines him. He leans into her and whispers,
“Where do you get off, you stuck-up bitch? You think anyone else is gonna want you now?”
He stands up and walks away.
It’s only towards the end of the film we learn why the coworker said what he did and why she’s had many other interesting interactions with seemingly random people.
The film makes many hints towards Kevin doing something terrible, in fact, the title even points towards it. And the acts he commits keep escalating in how awful they are.
I’d like to point out another scenario that Kevin carries out. It happens towards the end of the film, when he’s a teenager. Celia, his sister, loses a hamster (hamster/gerbil/fuckin rat, I don’t know). The family just assumes it got out of the house or something, they don’t think much about it. Celia and Eva are talking while Kevin and his dad are playing tether-ball outside. Eva starts doing the dishes. She washes some food down the drain and turns on the garbage disposal. As the faucet’s running, the water starts to overfill and clog. She turns on the garbage disposal, and it starts to whir and make an unusual sound.
Shock on her face, she looks outside to Kevin, who’s smiling and playing tether-ball. Once he notices that she’s looking at him and sees how concerned she is, the smile fades and he stares at her coldly. Like 4 seconds later, he gets back to playing tether-ball and smiles again.
Normally, I’d give a spoiler-warning before laying out a scene like that, but that isn’t where this film shines. The raw plot points aren’t what make this film special. It’s Ezra Miller as Kevin and Tilda Swinton as Eva. Ezra consistently does this detached, psychopathic face. It’s horrifying. And he can snap back to charismatic, average teenager on a dime.
Tilda beautifully plays an at-wits-end mom who’s had to deal with a child who continuously shows no respect for her. Early in the movie, you can feel how she still has hope for Kevin, but as the nightmare scenarios pile up into the present day, the life just drains from her.
My point is, the acting is what makes this movie. Knowing a couple of the awful things Kevin does doesn’t take away from the impact of seeing Kevin’s face as he watches Eva realize what he did.
And the final scene is absolutely brutal. It’s something you might see coming, like I did, but it makes it all the more painful seeing the characters come to the realization as to what happened.
Would I Recommend It?
Of course I would. After writing all that, I still can’t think of another word to describe this film than “harrowing”. It’s something that definitely sticks with you. It’s a shocking film. It gets you thinking about how you’d react if you had to take care of a kid like Kevin. And if you’d be able to manage him at all.
If you’re looking for something emotional, yet disturbing, We Need To Talk About Kevin should be the first on your list.