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We Need to Talk About Kevin
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Product Description
A suspenseful and gripping psychological thriller, Lynne Ramsay's WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT KEVIN explores the fractious relationship between a mother and her evil son. Tilda Swinton, in a bracing, tour-de-force performance, plays the mother, Eva, as she contends for 15 years with the increasing malevolence of her first-born child, Kevin (Ezra Miller). Based on the best-selling novel of the same name, WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT KEVIN explores nature vs. Nurture on a whole new level as Eva's own culpability is measured against Kevin's innate evilness. Ramsay's masterful storytelling simultaneously combines a provocative moral ambiguity with a satisfying and compelling narrative, which builds to a chilling, unforgettable climax.
Product details
- MPAA rating : R (Restricted)
- Product Dimensions : 0.7 x 5.7 x 7.5 inches; 2.72 ounces
- Item model number : 25149694
- Director : Lynne Ramsay
- Media Format : Multiple Formats, Color, NTSC, Subtitled, Widescreen, Dolby
- Run time : 1 hour and 52 minutes
- Release date : May 29, 2012
- Actors : Tilda Swinton, John C. Reilly, Ezra Miller
- Subtitles: : English
- Studio : Oscilloscope
- ASIN : B007C3TVNA
- Country of Origin : USA
- Number of discs : 1
- Best Sellers Rank: #70,748 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)
- #48,902 in DVD
- Customer Reviews:
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“We couldn’t use f****** Coke, we couldn’t use Campbell’s Soup cans.” Says Lynne Ramsay (Ratcatcher) of her remarkable adaptation of Lionel Shriver’s novel We Need To Talk About Kevin. As a result of this excision of brand names which didn’t wish to be associated with its controversial subject matter, the film is marked by a kind of negative product placement. Accordingly, it’s set in a kind of alternative America, an America, you might say, that is the exact inverse of the country invoked by the magical rituals of advertising. Here, the family is not the gently glowing space where parents find the meaning in their lives, mothers do not always bond with their children, but teenagers—they kill other teenagers.
Shriver (one of the best literary fiction authors going) famously had difficulties getting the novel published because prospective publishers worried about the novel’s lead character, Eva, being “unsympathetic.” Being an “unsympathetic character” in effect seems to mean not being the sort of woman who looks as if she belongs in the magical kingdom of advertising. In both the novel and the film, Eva is more than capable of eliciting readers’ and the viewers’ sympathy. What provokes discomfort is, rather, her very capacity to do so. Eva is “unsympathetic,” not because we cannot relate to her, but because she expresses “unacceptable” attitudes towards motherhood. “Now that children don’t till your fields or take you in when you’re incontinent,” Shriver has her write in the novel, “there is no sensible reason to have them, and it’s amazing that with the advent of effective contraception anyone chooses to reproduce at all.” Worse even than expressing open hostility toward being a mother, Eva feels ambivalence. Eva’s supposed “coldness” amounts to a deficit in the over-performance of feeling and attachment demanded by the currently dominant emotional regime.
We Need To Talk About Kevin is a mother’s horror story, or a horror story about motherhood. One could say it is every mother’s worst fear (or one of them, a parent’s life being hardly lacking in worst fears); or, conversely, that it is the wish-fulfilment fantasy for those who choose not to have children (why shouldn’t this happen to any parent?). In the novel, Eva refers to both Alien and Rosemary’s Baby, but these cinematic precursors are about the horrors of pregnancy; in We Need To Talk About Kevin, the real horror only ensues after a child’s birth.
We Need To Talk About Kevin is about the aftermath of a Columbine-style shooting at a school in a small American town. It focuses on, and is entirely focused through, Eva (Tilda Swinton), the killer’s mother, and her attempts to come to terms with what her son, Kevin, has done. Eva is persecuted—her property is covered in red paint, she is struck in the street—as if she, rather than her son, was really responsible for the atrocity. Eva herself somewhat shares this judgement, not least because Kevin’s violence does not entirely come as a shock to her. She has long suspected him to be either psychopathic or evil.
Perhaps the principal difference between film and novel consists in the shift from the first-person perspective of the book, in which Eva tells her story in the form of letters to her husband. The epistolary structure of the novel gives us Eva (and all her evasions and self-deceptions) from inside, whereas the film’s eschewal of voiceover means that much of what we learn about Eva we glean from studying her facial expressions and her body postures. In a film that is many ways about the failures and inadequacies of verbal communication, Swinton’s rightly praised performance consists in large part in the way that she deploys the angularity of her face and body to convey misgivings and trauma that are never spoken.
An obvious comparison is Gus Van Sant’s Elephant, another film about a Columbine-style massacre, but Ramsay’s film is very different. Elephant ends with the atrocity, with Van Sant’s camera following the two killers with the same cool implacability with which it had earlier tracked their victims’ uneventful walks through the school corridors. Kevin’s killings, meanwhile, are the absent, invisible center of Ramsay’s film. By contrast with Elephant’s oddly diffident lyricism, We Need To Talk About Kevin’s expressionistic naturalism has a roiling, post-traumatic nonlinearity. It discloses its narrative fitfully, in snatches and gobbets that make sense only gradually, like the confused speech of a concussion victim. The film cuts with all the manic desperation of an insomniac brain seeking to take refuge from a horror that has contaminated everything. For Eva, there is no escape in the past; every memory becomes part of a cryptic causal sequence that always culminates in the killings. What was the root of the violence? And what role, if any, did she play in bringing it about?
Eva’s case seems to be that Kevin was born a psychopath—a psychopath whose whole life is geared toward tormenting her. Kevin’s cruelties appear to be designed with his mother as the audience. Shriver makes much of the parallels between Eva and Kevin, and some of the most memorable shots in the film position mother and son as doubles of one another. Kevin derives extra enjoyment from the performance of doting son that he artfully puts on for the benefit of his annoyingly credulous father (John C. Reilly). Ultimately, however, in the film as in the novel, it is Kevin that is the weakest element. In the film, this isn’t because of poor performances—all of the actors who play Kevin are excellent, with Miller, who plays the teenage Kevin, particularly worthy of commendation. The problem is that the character of Kevin neither comes off as naturalistically plausible nor as mythically compelling: instead, he is a sour melodrama turn, a sullen pantomime villain, a demon from the wrong kind of horror film. The film, like the book, equivocates between explaining Kevin’s actions and holding that their evil consists precisely in their resistance to explanation. Much like the Joker in The Dark Knight, Kevin rejects and ridicules any explanation for his actions, including one he offers himself. He later laughs at the explanation he himself proffers in a TV interview—that he wanted to “pass onto the other side of the screen, become what everyone else was watching”—dismissing it as facile. “The secret is that there is no secret,” Shriver writes, and Kevin wants to be a true rebel without a cause, his violence an inexplicable passage a l’acte, whose radical freedom consists in the fact that it is both uncaused and without a reason. In refusing to offer easy explanations, both the film and the novel collude with Kevin’s ambition.
Reviewed in the United States on October 26, 2019
“We couldn’t use f****** Coke, we couldn’t use Campbell’s Soup cans.” Says Lynne Ramsay (Ratcatcher) of her remarkable adaptation of Lionel Shriver’s novel We Need To Talk About Kevin. As a result of this excision of brand names which didn’t wish to be associated with its controversial subject matter, the film is marked by a kind of negative product placement. Accordingly, it’s set in a kind of alternative America, an America, you might say, that is the exact inverse of the country invoked by the magical rituals of advertising. Here, the family is not the gently glowing space where parents find the meaning in their lives, mothers do not always bond with their children, but teenagers—they kill other teenagers.
Shriver (one of the best literary fiction authors going) famously had difficulties getting the novel published because prospective publishers worried about the novel’s lead character, Eva, being “unsympathetic.” Being an “unsympathetic character” in effect seems to mean not being the sort of woman who looks as if she belongs in the magical kingdom of advertising. In both the novel and the film, Eva is more than capable of eliciting readers’ and the viewers’ sympathy. What provokes discomfort is, rather, her very capacity to do so. Eva is “unsympathetic,” not because we cannot relate to her, but because she expresses “unacceptable” attitudes towards motherhood. “Now that children don’t till your fields or take you in when you’re incontinent,” Shriver has her write in the novel, “there is no sensible reason to have them, and it’s amazing that with the advent of effective contraception anyone chooses to reproduce at all.” Worse even than expressing open hostility toward being a mother, Eva feels ambivalence. Eva’s supposed “coldness” amounts to a deficit in the over-performance of feeling and attachment demanded by the currently dominant emotional regime.
We Need To Talk About Kevin is a mother’s horror story, or a horror story about motherhood. One could say it is every mother’s worst fear (or one of them, a parent’s life being hardly lacking in worst fears); or, conversely, that it is the wish-fulfilment fantasy for those who choose not to have children (why shouldn’t this happen to any parent?). In the novel, Eva refers to both Alien and Rosemary’s Baby, but these cinematic precursors are about the horrors of pregnancy; in We Need To Talk About Kevin, the real horror only ensues after a child’s birth.
We Need To Talk About Kevin is about the aftermath of a Columbine-style shooting at a school in a small American town. It focuses on, and is entirely focused through, Eva (Tilda Swinton), the killer’s mother, and her attempts to come to terms with what her son, Kevin, has done. Eva is persecuted—her property is covered in red paint, she is struck in the street—as if she, rather than her son, was really responsible for the atrocity. Eva herself somewhat shares this judgement, not least because Kevin’s violence does not entirely come as a shock to her. She has long suspected him to be either psychopathic or evil.
Perhaps the principal difference between film and novel consists in the shift from the first-person perspective of the book, in which Eva tells her story in the form of letters to her husband. The epistolary structure of the novel gives us Eva (and all her evasions and self-deceptions) from inside, whereas the film’s eschewal of voiceover means that much of what we learn about Eva we glean from studying her facial expressions and her body postures. In a film that is many ways about the failures and inadequacies of verbal communication, Swinton’s rightly praised performance consists in large part in the way that she deploys the angularity of her face and body to convey misgivings and trauma that are never spoken.
An obvious comparison is Gus Van Sant’s Elephant, another film about a Columbine-style massacre, but Ramsay’s film is very different. Elephant ends with the atrocity, with Van Sant’s camera following the two killers with the same cool implacability with which it had earlier tracked their victims’ uneventful walks through the school corridors. Kevin’s killings, meanwhile, are the absent, invisible center of Ramsay’s film. By contrast with Elephant’s oddly diffident lyricism, We Need To Talk About Kevin’s expressionistic naturalism has a roiling, post-traumatic nonlinearity. It discloses its narrative fitfully, in snatches and gobbets that make sense only gradually, like the confused speech of a concussion victim. The film cuts with all the manic desperation of an insomniac brain seeking to take refuge from a horror that has contaminated everything. For Eva, there is no escape in the past; every memory becomes part of a cryptic causal sequence that always culminates in the killings. What was the root of the violence? And what role, if any, did she play in bringing it about?
Eva’s case seems to be that Kevin was born a psychopath—a psychopath whose whole life is geared toward tormenting her. Kevin’s cruelties appear to be designed with his mother as the audience. Shriver makes much of the parallels between Eva and Kevin, and some of the most memorable shots in the film position mother and son as doubles of one another. Kevin derives extra enjoyment from the performance of doting son that he artfully puts on for the benefit of his annoyingly credulous father (John C. Reilly). Ultimately, however, in the film as in the novel, it is Kevin that is the weakest element. In the film, this isn’t because of poor performances—all of the actors who play Kevin are excellent, with Miller, who plays the teenage Kevin, particularly worthy of commendation. The problem is that the character of Kevin neither comes off as naturalistically plausible nor as mythically compelling: instead, he is a sour melodrama turn, a sullen pantomime villain, a demon from the wrong kind of horror film. The film, like the book, equivocates between explaining Kevin’s actions and holding that their evil consists precisely in their resistance to explanation. Much like the Joker in The Dark Knight, Kevin rejects and ridicules any explanation for his actions, including one he offers himself. He later laughs at the explanation he himself proffers in a TV interview—that he wanted to “pass onto the other side of the screen, become what everyone else was watching”—dismissing it as facile. “The secret is that there is no secret,” Shriver writes, and Kevin wants to be a true rebel without a cause, his violence an inexplicable passage a l’acte, whose radical freedom consists in the fact that it is both uncaused and without a reason. In refusing to offer easy explanations, both the film and the novel collude with Kevin’s ambition.
This is the kind of movie that is not only highly controversial but likely to split viewers into the "love it" or "absolutely hate it" camp. Those who hate it are likely to find it beyond disturbing and actually loathsome.
But I was very eager to see this movie. If you've already viewed the film you might well wonder why. The major reason was because I'd read the book on which this film is based and it haunted me.
The movie is a very dark tale of one family and the way a difficult child can divide husband and wife as well as derail one mother's life. But is she to blame? I don't think so. Others may disagree. Instead, I think the film explores the age old question of nature versus nurture and how that affects moral development.
From the outset, it is clear that Kevin and his mother, played by Tilda Swinton, seem to be at odds with each other. Why this is the case is less clear although some reviewers have felt that Kevin's mother is to blame for his chillingly cold heart.
A crucial part of the movie resides in the last few sentences spoken by Kevin, shortly before the fiilm credits roll. If there is any hopeful note (and that is subject to interpretation) it is at that point in the movie.
I wish I could write those words here but that would rob potential viewers of a riveting moment, what I consider the key to the theme of the movie. Listen to Kevin and you might even feel some sympathy for him, some sense of a person who may be as lost to himself as to his family.
Not all lives are sunny and there are not always pat endings as films like Rabbit Hole and others which explore painful family events make clear. In Rabbit Hole, Nicole Kidman did a stellar job showing how one woman dealth with the loss of a child.
In We Need to Talk About Kevin, Tilda Swinton mines the depths of pain just as Kidman did in Rabbit Hole - although the family dynamics are far different. Swinton shows a woman who starts out with hope, giddily falls in love, gets pregnant and then goes on to have a life far different than she could possibly imagine. It could happen to many of us. Perhaps that also adds to the difficulty in sitting through this film. It made me squirm uncomfortably in my chair but it also made me want to know more about the mother and son at the heart of the movie.
Swinton's character forced me to face the fact that even as we deny the reality, the truth is that our lives can change drastically in one moment and that horrific moment can change our lives for years - if not for the rest of our lives. .
The lives portrayed here seemed very real. I could imagine a family where one child remained a mystery. It is hard to see this one and not wonder if the conscience is formed even before birth or whether parents have much impact on that. In short, is it genes or environment that affects personality most - a question that has been asked for years.
I was awestruck by the imagery and camera work in We Need to Talk About Kevin. Many scenes are stunners simply because of a particular angle and some of the close-ups seem like artistic works, often ominous but portraying shocking events without graphic detail (although there are exceptions). Some of the most violent events have to be reconstructed in the viewers' imaginations.
For those who believe Kevin's mother is at the root of his problems consider these questions:
1. Why is the mother able to conceive, bear and nurture a loving daughter?
2. Could a difficult pregnancy and uncomfortable feelings actually be a foreboding of things to come or was there a true mismatch between mother and son? Or did mother turn against Kevin when her infant turned out to be exhausting and overwhelmed her? For that matter, did she ever turn against him or just grow disheartened as her attempts to reach him seemed doomed.
3. How and why are husband and wife so split in their feelings about Kevin? Are they both in denial or do they each have a truly different relationship with their son?
4. Could anything have changed the outcome? Was there anything Kevin's mother could have done differently to change her son for the better? Or was the outcome fated almost from the day Kevin was born?
Top reviews from other countries
L’étude presque scientifique de l’enfance de ce psychopathe en puissance est décidément l’une des œuvres cinématographique qui m’aura le plus marquée ! Je ne peux que conseiller à tout le monde de voir ce film, esprits sensibles s’abstenir tout de même !
Pensé que sería la edicion standard de Blu-ray en caja azul, pero me llego el digipack, fue una sorpresa porque no contaba con que estuviera disponible aún esa edición.
Para los fans de la cinta, deben tener esta edición.
El idioma es en inglés y subtítulo en inglés.
NO contiene audio ni subtítulo en español.
Reviewed in Mexico on September 22, 2020
Pensé que sería la edicion standard de Blu-ray en caja azul, pero me llego el digipack, fue una sorpresa porque no contaba con que estuviera disponible aún esa edición.
Para los fans de la cinta, deben tener esta edición.
El idioma es en inglés y subtítulo en inglés.
NO contiene audio ni subtítulo en español.
Director Ramsay acutely shifts narrative expectations, boldly avoiding Kevin as a character. This psychological thriller’s fragmented structure, comprising of reflective flashbacks and present acceptance, transfers story responsibility to Eva. Kevin’s fragile yet strong-willed mother, dealing with the verbal and bodily hostility that her neighbourhood supply. Yet, as the feature progresses, it is transpired that Eva herself is the soul who lost nearly everything in life. Ramsay explores this sense of hopelessness, a path of redemption, through the character of Eva. The background psychology abrasively avoids Kevin as a character, solely analysing his mother instead. Her detached interactions with said child. Her depressive state of mind. Slight compulsions in her behaviour. Indicatively conveying the succinct dispensing of parental attitudes, and how they can affect a child’s upbringing.
Whilst exploration into Kevin’s cynical origins was lacking, merely exploiting the structure for a narrative premise, it conversely functioned as an enigmatic stepping stone into the psyche of Eva. Ramsay continuously forced the camera to observe her natural reactions whenever Kevin committed an atrocity. Conversational pieces would always focus on her. Again, it’s not Kevin story. It’s Eva’s. Ramsay yet again subverting expectations, whilst employing a progressively intriguing structure that blends two varying characterisations of Eva.
Exerting energy and expending days cleaning her damaged house and belongings, after they had been engulfed in a red substance. Symbolising the blood that Kevin spilled upon the town, and how she is unable to wash her hands of his actions, partially feeling responsible. The implementation of overbearing red throughout the feature exemplifying the emotionally intense battle for power between Eva and Kevin. Impeccably directed, every shot of McGarvey’s cinematography was sensational and provided a thematic inclination to the onscreen horrors. Rarely showing the ghastly actions Kevin took upon himself, allowing the audience to imagine the shocking endeavours instead. Incredibly powerful. Bolstered by a spacious screenplay that enables the pleasing visuals to tell a story.
The real shining star however, in what is a career best performance, was Swinton. Undoubtedly, perfection. There was not a single pitch out of place within her role as Eva. She beautifully embodied the emotional resonance of the character whilst applying additional nuances to her physical fatigued transformation during the present storyline. Honestly? Faultless. Miller was also outstanding, exuding a menacing aura forcing Kevin to be unhinged even during the most calming moments. The purposeful employment of Reilly, whom was indeed overshadowed by everyone else, aided in enhancing the bond between Swinton and Miller. A meticulous choice to grant him a lesser role, to ensure the spotlight was not removed from Swinton.
One could argue that Ramsay’s adaptation of Shriver’s novel provided commentary on American accessibility to youthful violence. Or perhaps media representation outing Eva to be the matriarchal figure of a monster, whom is equally to blame. Personally, these were not Ramsay’s attempts. It’s a literal bond between mother and son. Emphasising how delicate upbringing can shape malleable souls into becoming members of society. Powerful, palpable and pragmatic. We Need To Talk About Kevin is extraordinarily overlooked, and is a near-perfect contemporary psychological character study. But perhaps we need to talk about Eva instead...