We Need to Talk About Kevin

Former travel journalist and cosmopolitan Eva Khatchadourian (Tilda Swinton) carries a heavy mental burden. The reason is her son Kevin (Ezra Miller), who even as a baby shows a headstrong distance that makes it difficult for mother Eva to establish closeness. While her husband Franklin (John C. Reilly) sees nothing unusual in his son, Eva is concerned about his lack of empathy and his lust for destruction. Director Lynne Ramsay only gradually reveals the family drama, both suspenseful and moving at once. She shows, how the once happy couple slides into a catastrophe of unimagined proportions. “In her third film after Ratcatcher and Morvern Callar, Lynne Ramsay bravely balances between psychological drama and horror film. Like the controversial novel by Lionel Shriver, the film remains entirely in the perspective of Eva and her hindsight. It could also be due to this unreliable narrator that Kevin takes on demonic traits. Again and again, this handsome boy's face with the sly grin suggests something evil that has no motives, no psychology other than a lust for destruction. At the same time, however, the director provides clues as to why Kevin grows up to be a sociopath: a lack of love and the constantly maintained lie of the perfect family. While the father is always placating, Eva struggles in vain to love her son, whom she has perhaps rejected from the very beginning because he represents the loss of her freedom. And that is why Kevin's hatred is perhaps only the reflection and nemesis of her own repressed hatred. [...] The emotional force of the whole thing arises from the antagonism of Ezra Miller, who plays the teenager Kevin with terrifying coldness, and Tilda Swinton, whose Eva is certainly one of the most moving roles of her long career. “We Need to Talk About Kevin” is a disturbing movie, and it has a long-lasting effect. What you shouldn't expect from it is a concise analysis of how and why young people become murderers. But just as Roman Polanski once translated the fears of pregnant women into horror metaphors in Rosemary's Baby, Lynne Ramsay finds multi-layered images for the most terrible nightmare of parents: that their failure could turn their child into a monster.” (Patrick Seyboth, at: epd-film.de)