Starting with Eva - she is intentionally painting herself in the worst possible light, which ironically covers up the actual extent of her emotional abuse, since she is flagellating herself only for the worst moments of her parenthood - the lowlights - and not looking at the whole picture. Years later, the birth of her daughter Celia, on the other hand, feels more festive. For full Oscars coverage and commentary by its reviewer, Fr. So we must find our Grace in the minuscule, and it is in these brief moments of consolation, these shafts of light under the door, that Kevin provides the deft sucker punch to the, by now, standard narrative benchmarks of despair, emptiness and futility which permeate contemporary film. I mean, there's no room for the leader of the rebellion to give up. None of this is done in a straightforward fashion. He completely denies the reality of Kevin's personality and identity, and thus any agency over their relationship. For instance, the ball game Eva plays with a toddler Kevin: when Kevin successfully rolls the ball back to her, her praise is strained and brittle. Kevin is far too malevolent, which might work in a Rosemary's Baby horror context, but not here (admittedly it does verge on horror at times but ultimately we are asked to empathise with Eva's travails as a mother). If she had her way, she would put her life on rewind and start all over again maybe even as somebody else, since she's not very fond of herself. His eyes dont give away any sense of remorse or guilt. I think Jentorra felt a little betrayed by her, and there was no real reconciliation with them at the end. The film explores and identifies the hope to be found in the ashes of Ground Zero and in the wake of Columbine while never once attempting to sugarcoat the real darkness and danger that exist in our world. Kevin and Eva look similar, and in many scenes, Kevin and Eva wear similar clothes. He grows into a spiteful toddler, refusing to say "mommy" and egging on her frustrations. It may not strike one as something extraordinary, but one needs to understand that Kevins mind is wired differently. It'd be so much fun. Alienated from friends and community, all she has left is her son. The victims of those who go out with a bang are miniscule in comparison to the number who go out (extinguish themselves) in solitude with nary a whimper. The bed, the gown, and the walls bleed into each other in their cold whiteness, externalising her inner state of mind. Ramsay establishes a sense of aloofness in Eva with Kevin still in utero. Now I'm not so sure." describes the "nature vs. nurture" debate. Outward appearances of mother and son match their steely interiority as neither suffers fools gladly and both abhor artifice and sentimentality. Go do something. The result is that Franklin completely deprives Kevin of proper care - not only mental healthcare, but any other kind of care. Alec Baldwin has been charged in the southwest state of New Mexico for manslaughter and faces an 18-month prison sentence, as does the film's armourer Hannah Gutierrez-Reed. It's a cyclical pattern, making it impossible to hold just one person accountable for everything. Don't post randomness/off-topic comments. By. But Kevin is just getting started, and his final act will be be Kevin's mother struggles to love her strange child, despite the increasingly dangerous things he says and does as he grows up. ROHAN: Since Jentorra and most of her freedom fighters make it out alive, have you heard anything about coming back for more Quantum Realm adventures down the line? For mothers always seem to be on trial. The past and present intertwine as Eva recalls Kevins formative years from childhood to adolescence, hoping for clues on what went wrong. From the beginning, Eva is detached from motherhood. A flashback, from long before Kevin was born, shows Eva at La Tomatina, celebrating with the crowd. She is the wrong person in the wrong life with the wrong child. We see it in her bond with the more amiable Celia. As a baby and toddler, he is merely colicky, irritating and would try the patience of a saint. But it also doesn't set out to wag a moral finger or make any grand, sweeping statements. Franklin and Kevin have no special connections like that, and Franklin appropriates Eva's so that he can have something manly to do with his son. Her husband Franklin (John C. Reilly) dismisses her concerns and uproots their bustling city life for a quiet home in the suburbs. Kevins reaction is an indictment of both Eva and audiences expectations and their desire for his complicity in perpetrating the fraud. Kevin's insidious nature is best exemplified in a scene staged in the aftermath of Celia losing her eye. But Kevin is just getting started, and his final act will be beyond anything anyone imagined. With Franklin there is no conflict. Home | KATY: Yeah, I mean, this obviously had the difference between TV and movie. Helmed by Scottish filmmaker Lynne Ramsay based on the Orange Prize-winning eponymous 2003 novel by Lionel Shriver, We Need to Talk About Kevin is a jarring, erratic, and sometimes profoundly disturbing 2011 psychological thriller that creates an uncanny place in the viewers mind. It is so ingrained in our culture even a fellow grieving mother slaps her in the parking lot. Haunted by the past, Eva's memories are triggered by sounds, objects and everyday minutiae. So, I think TV being as fast paced as it is, and as kind of chaotic as it can be, it doesn't always set you up for being able to walk into a film where you've had plenty of time to look into everything and prepare. This model of motherhood so deeply rooted as it is in the biological doesnt leave much room for aberration, such that any rejection by the child becomes an indictment of the mothers entire existence. What feels like a simple story feels so much larger due to the development of every character and the world around them, it almost feels like you know these characters personally and feel for them when something happens, that is a what great movie does. Kevin knows that Celia is his mothers favorite offspring, and he goes to great lengths to make his mother feel uncomfortable. Besides their physical likeness, Eva and Kevin also share a certain coldness, which plays into Eva's self-hatred. Eva Khatchadourian, a former travelogue writer, lives in a rundown shack in an American suburb and goes to meet her son. For example, sociopaths are more erratic, and they dont make drastic decisions such as Kevins. KATY: Oh, I'd love to come back. How difficult was it to play the straight woman when everyone around you gets to be fairly silly in the early scenes? Eva can only play at being mommy, and so when Kevin refuses her attempts to breastfeed and is only appeased by the presence of his affable father, played by John C. Reilly, her whole world crashes down around her and her value as a person comes into question. The cast ensemble, with Tilda Swinton, John C. Reilly, and Ezra Miller in a menacing role, cannot be praised enough. Now, mommy wakes up every morning and wishes she was in France! ANT-MAN AND THE WASP: QUANTUMANIA Star Katy O'Brian On Deleted Bill Murray Scene, Backstory & More (Exclusive). There are two really great examples of this: the first is the bow. ROHAN: Was there anything major cut that you remember shooting? There are two really great examples of this: the first is the bow. We Need to Talk About Kevin (2011) photos, including production stills, premiere photos and other event photos, publicity photos, behind-the-scenes, and more. This is why, in the final scene, he no longer knows why he performed the massacre. The sound of him savouring the juicy fruit a fruit he doesn't even like in deliberate crunches of sinister delight becomes unsettling when paired with the thought of Celia's lost eye. When the child Kevin is sick and nuzzles close to his mother as she reads, his father comes to the door and is rejected in favor of his mother, the look on Evas face is one of wonder and delight. He buys a few locks before the school sabotage and has a decisive plan regarding how to go about it. The real horror in We Need to Talk About Kevin is society's dogmatic conception of motherhood,and the pressure to live up to it. I got to try some fight choreo, but all in all, yeah, it helped me prepare, I will say I was much more excited to be a good guy instead of a lame, side character, bad guy. Don't comment just to troll/provoke. The second is Kevin's bedroom. Kevin poops in his pants, and thinking this act to be deliberate, Eva throws him to the ground, breaking his arm. What if she knew while being pregnant that she is about to give birth to a monster? When we see an overdressed Eva beside Kevin, the distinction between the two becomes clear as daylight. The real monster is expecting nothing less than unconditional love. Does their parental neglect make them culpable for the lives he took? David Badash. However, she created a pattern whereby she only expresses herself to Kevin through disgust and fear. Reddit and its partners use cookies and similar technologies to provide you with a better experience. By provoking her, Kevin is able to get some precious emotional honesty out of her. This review of the film was originally published on December 22, 2011. These people live there, but they've never moved in. While Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumaniadidn't bring back several mainstays of the wider Ant-Man family, the film did introduce a number of new allies, namely Jentorra and her Freedom Fighters. So to sum up, Eva systematically deprived Kevin of maternal love, then trained him to accept disgust and fear in its place. In reality, Kevin has an acquired taste for sadistic vengeance, and the lychee symbolizes Celias eye in the scene. We see this throughout Kevin's early developmental journey. Nothing makes sense. Nicoletta Vallorani in her essay Of women and children: Bad mothers as rough heroes, reads a Biblical metaphor into We Need to Talk About Kevin. None of that takes anything away from yet another deeply felt performance by the always-interesting Swinton. The novel explores themes of nihilism, motherhood, the relationship between violence and depravity, and much more. Powered by WordPress.com VIP. Therefore, when Kevin shows Eva the scar from the childhood accident, he tells her that it is the most honest thing that Eva ever did to him. There's the Good Mother, like Diane Freeling who travels to another dimension to save her daughter in Poltergeist. You know, it's all fun and games until you really understand that every single decision that you make impacts everybody. They never talk about Kevin. We see it in the wall of canned tomatoes that play backdrop to Evas anxiety attack in a supermarket, and the Cabernets she drowns her sorrows with. What is lupus, an autoimmune disease diagnosed in Selena Gomez causing her weight gain? Hes a friendly and vibrant young priest and a gifted preacher. An early scene shows Eva apparently participating in an orgy in a lake of blood. Read on for our full interview with Katy O'Brianand please remember to SUBSCRIBE to my channel for exclusive content! It asks, "who is to blame when something horrific happens?". The woman sits up in alarm and shakes the MAN. The novel by Lionel Shriver relates the story through a series of letters Eva writes to her husband Franklin. Directed by Peyton Reed and produced by Kevin Feige, p.g.a. Jake Martin, SJ, is a Jesuit priest, comedian and writer. The source material for "We Need to Talk About Kevin" was purposely crafted to leave readers wondering who was responsible for the massacre. Franklin himself lives in a state of demented decency, deceiving himself that his family are living acceptable lives. His final act of brutality a school massacre in addition to murdering his father and sister destroys any semblance of normalcy for Eva. Terms Of Service | The red paint of vandals stains her car and the front of her house. This in turn completely undermines the husband/wife dynamic. Swinton said as much in an interview, Its about her fears and the horror of what she knows about herselfusing him as a kind of projection of her own self-loathing. The two embrace, and then she walks away. He is her., Her identity forever defined by the horrors inflicted by her son, Evas punishment is her loneliness. And it works - Eva's confrontation was brutally dishonest, but after his reaction she's barely containing her seething rage and the truth of it is all over her face. You couldnt have possibly thought that seeing someone eat lychee would be so distressing, but Ezra Miller makes it happen. Despite the fact that Eva is a travel writer of particular renown, she is bound by an understanding of mother/child relationships that do not correspond with her own relationship with her son. The impressionistic nature of the film does not blurt out the whole truth, and the audience has to make their own journey to construct the meaning. Top Films of the 2010s as voted for by RYM (2021/Final edition), NEW TOURNAMENT: [PPE] RYM Picks the Most Outstanding Acting Performances in Cinematic History, Top Films of the 2010s as voted for by RYM (2020 edition), Top Films of the 2010s as voted for by RYM (2019 edition), Dark/Sinister films that have upbeat music during the credits, Top Films of the 2010s as voted for by RYM (2018 edition), RYM's Preferred Female Performances: 2011, Top Films of the 2010s as voted for by RYM (2017 edition), United Kingdom, United States, 35mm, Color, Dolby Stereo, Literary Adaptation, Artificial Eye, Code Red, Oscilloscope Pictures. Mimicking the cyclical nature of trauma, the shot repeats in the climax, where Eva discovers the slain bodies of her husband and daughter. In the next sequence, he appears in a loose white shirt. Directed by Lynne Ramsey So, his dressing sense is perhaps not an indictment of his bitterness. Kevin's bedroom is actually the biggest red flag in the film, and the fact that neither Eva nor Franklin noticed that Kevin's bedroom clearly displays the signs of mental illness until he was fifteen years old proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that Franklin had never looked in his bedroom, wasn't interested in his interests or hobbies, and didn't want to know what he did in his spare time. Therefore, the sense of clothing provides a link between the otherwise antagonistic mother and son. The point here is not to understand Kevin at all. ", Did Kevin internalize her hatred of him, or is she just feeding into his innate instability? This cycle is beautifully written and acted by Swinton, so much that you can't help but empathize with her despite her own assurances that every drop of blood her son ever spilt is on her hands, an image weaved throughout the movie. Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg's response to Donald Trump's refusal to accept any responsibility for the impact his massive deregulations have had went viral on Thursday as video of him encouraging the ex-president to support the Biden administration's efforts went viral. His reply: "You don't want to kill your audience.". And I really am curious as to how she's handling a society of ultra-intelligent ants that basically flooded her world. Indeed, Kevin is a relentless film that gives its audience few opportunities to come up for air from the depths of anguish to which it plummets. The camera zooms in, but the scene cuts just before we can get a peek on what's on the other side of it. Kevin has a real emotional attachment to his bow because the only time his mother showed him genuine affection was when he had the flu, and she read Robin Hood to him. 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