We Need to Talk About Kevin

Dir: Lynne Ramsay

2011

*****

After the success of 2002’s Morven Caller, Lynne Ramsay was approached to direct adaptation of Alice Sebold's best selling novel The Lovely Bones. This was big, the book had sold millions and she was the first director to be approached, receiving the manuscript prior to its publication. However, she left the project in early 2004 - after the novel had become a bestseller because the producers wanted a version more ‘faithful’ to the original than she had been planning. It was a huge mistake and those that we’re aware of her adaptation have been vocal on how much better it would have been. The film itself was a flop, eventually directed by Peter Jackson. Ramsay was proven right but she had wasted years working on the film and it knocked her for six. It took her nine years before she could direct again, and while it is a crime that she wasn’t able to make a film in nearly a decade, it was well worth the wait. However, her work on We Need to Talk About Kevin started well before 2011. BBC Films acquired the rights to Lionel Shriver’s novel in 2005. Ramsay, along with writer Robert Festinger, were involved by 2006. Shriver was offered a consultative role in the production process but declined, stating she had "had it up to her eyeballs with that book," though she did express concern for how the film would capture Eva's role as the unreliable narrator. Trust in Ramsay. Production had not begun by 2007, though BBC Films renewed the adaptation rights early in the year. Shriver stated that she had not been in contact with Ramsay about the film for over two years, the long delay in production had been caused by BBC Films having difficulty funding the high budget. Ramsay rewrote the script so the film could be made for a lower cost and the project went forward from there. The narration is changed from the original and the story begins at the end and is told from memory flashbacks – something that doesn’t always work, but suits this story perfectly. We first see teenager Kevin Khatchadourian (Ezra Miller) as an inmate in prison. He is there after committing a massacre at his high school. His mother, Eva (Tilda Swinton), once a successful travel writer, lives alone in a rundown house and works in a travel agency near the prison, where she visits him regularly. As she waits to see him, she looks back at her memories of him growing up as she tries to cope with the hostility of her neighbors. Kevin is detached and difficult from childhood (he is now played by the much younger Rocky Duer). He appears to loathe and deliberately antagonize his mother and she has trouble bonding with him. As a baby, he cries incessantly, but only around her. As a young child, he resists toilet training, rebuffs Eva's attempts at affection and shows no interest in anything. However, he behaves like a happy, loving son when his father Franklin (John C. Reilly) is watching. Eva's frustration drives her to throw Kevin against the wall, breaking his arm. Kevin tells Franklin he fell, using the incident to blackmail Eva into doing what he wants. Franklin dismisses Eva's concerns and makes excuses for Kevin's behavior. When Kevin is confined to bed with a fever, Eva reads him a book about Robin Hood; when Robin competes in Prince John's archery contest, Kevin shows Eva affection for the first time. After his enthusiasm for the story, his father gives him a bow and arrow and teaches him archery. Eva and Franklin soon have a second child, Celia, who is lively and cheerful. However, Kevin is disdainful and jealous. A few years later, Celia's pet guinea pig is killed and she is blinded in one eye by caustic cleaning fluid. Eva is suspicious but Franklin insists that Kevin is not to blame. Eva's suspicion strains the couple's marriage and they discuss divorce. Eva comes to fear her son, as she sees growing evidence of Kevin's sadism. Years later, now a teenager, Kevin locks several students in the school gymnasium and murders them with his bow. When Eva arrives home, she finds Kevin has murdered Franklin and Celia, both are lying in the house and garden with arrows in them. On the second anniversary of the massacre, Eva visits Kevin in prison. Eva asks him why he committed the murders. Kevin, who is about to be transferred to an adult prison, responds that he used to think he knew but is no longer sure. Eva hugs Kevin and walks away sadly, despite the hate she receives from the community, blood is thicker than water and we get the impression she will visit her son again. It’s a cold and brutal thriller and the three actors playing Kevin are all incredibly convincing. Tilda Swinton is brilliant as the pained and somewhat haunted mother of a devil child, while John C. Reilly is perfectly suited as the positive and unaffected father figure – although he didn’t seem so in the beginning. Don’t get me wrong, he’s a great actor, but the casting seemed at little odd at first, but turned out to be a very clever move. It is fascinating to see how Ramsay’s style of direction had changed over the nine years between features. The film is crisp and bold but the character focus is as strong as ever. It’s described as a psychological horror but in truth this is a beautifully made contemporary horror. I now believe Lynne Ramsay is incapable of making a bad film, she is the UK’s next Stanley Kubrick.