We Need To Talk About Kevin

Tonight I went to the Robinson Film Center and saw We Need To Talk About Kevin. It’s the story of a woman whose son kills some fellow classmates and how she has to deal with that trauma of that event. Eva Katchadourian never wanted Kevin to begin with, a fact he was painfully aware of from early on in his life. So his response to not being wanted was defiance. Eva has to deal with Kevin as he grows up, but she also has a husband – Franklin – who subtly defends most of Kevin’s defiant behavior. Eventually Eva and Franklin had a daughter – Celia – who throws another element of dysfunction into the family because Kevin was so cruel to her. The story itself has little to do with Kevin or the massacre, but more the universality of having to deal with the consequences of others’ mistakes. Eva does this horribly. Although she never leaves town, she is shunned by it. She gets a menial job after running a very successful travel agency before the incident. Her thoughts are mostly memories of Kevin and how and where it all went wrong. She continually relives the past, though she portrays a front of one that is very much moving on. It’s such a tell-tale story of not letting others and the past define you, but finding yourself in the rubble that is left of your life.

The way they mainly chose to deal with that in Tilda Swinton’s character – Eva Katchtourian – was through flashbacks. Non-sequential movies usually are not my cup of tea, but Tilda totally is. There is very little dialogue in the movie, as you see Eva’s pain in her eyes. She obviously speaks to people like Franklin and Celia and her boss Wanda and another work friend, but other than that, this woman is very, very alone. When she goes to one of her frequent visits to juvie to see Kevin, they just sit there not discussing much of anything. When she’s home she just lays on the sofa thinking on the past. The flashbacks are just as bad. As she tried to raise Kevin (and Celia) as productive members of society and “good kids” and his continued refusal to do so is quite worrisome to Eva, but she said little. Swinton played as though this were a silent film. Her body spoke, her mouth didn’t. For the first 20mins of the movie, the dialogue is minimal. The first words Swinton’s character offers the viewer is “That’s fantastic.” Oh, what was to come. The horror in the silence is what made the movie. Also, the cinematography wasn’t too steady, an obvious allusion to Eva’s own uneasiness about life. Ezra Miller who played Kevin was really, really good, too. I’m not familiar with him at all, but you really both hate and have sympathy for Kevin throughout the movie. Miller made this happen through – again – his eyes. The innocence has definitely left them, but there’s a reason for that. Although what he did was inexcusable, why and how it came to what happened can be understood on some level.

The Robinson will be showing Friends with Kids and Detachment later. I want to see both, but more Detachment. It stars Adrien Brody, Marcia Gay Harden, Christina Hendricks, Blythe Danner, Lucy Liu, James Caan, Bryan Cranston, and William Petersen, just to name a few. Oh and Tony Kaye is the director. Are you KIDDING me?!?!