But we can safely assume that Kevin did not literally eat the eyeball. The truth to motherhood is a harsh one. While Eva and Franklin argue over the accident, Kevin taunts his mother by peeling a litchi, with a smug look on his face. BBC Films The condition causes loss of the ability to understand or express speech. Firstpost - All Rights Reserved. This terrifying South Korean found footage horror movie directed by Jung Bum-shik follows an internet broadcaster who reunites a team of . Alienated from friends and community, all she has left is her son. 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. The past and present intertwine as Eva recalls Kevins formative years from childhood to adolescence, hoping for clues on what went wrong. The film moves without any pattern between past, present and who knows when. We cling to guidelines like the length of Tilda Swinton 's hair to figure out where we are. The story revolves around a family of four, but the main focus is on the relationship between the mother (Eva, played by Tilda Swinton) and the son (Kevin, played by Rock River, Jasper Newell and Ezra Miller). In the next sequence, he appears in a loose white shirt. As a teenager, Kevin (now played by Ezra Miller) has started to cruelly resemble his mother in profile and hairstyle. His final act of brutality a school massacre in addition to murdering his father and sister destroys any semblance of normalcy for Eva. However it wasn't in the film I watched today and I can't find the scene anywhere..did I just imagine this scene?! Little Kevin cries relentlessly, and Eva often uses cruel methods to shut him up. for disturbing violence and behavior, some sexuality and language, Berlinale 2023 Highlights, Part Two: Reality, Manodrome, The Adults, Inside, Golda, Angela Bassett, Jamie Lee Curtis, Brendan Fraser, Cate Blanchett, Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson Feted at SBIFF 2023, Revisiting Martin Scorsese's Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore, Tragically Common: Jamie Dack, Lily McInerny and Jonathan Tucker on Palm Trees and Power Lines. Meanwhile, Kevin is planning something that would shatter Evas world forever. We Need to Talk About Kevin is already playing in NYC; it opens today in LA, Chicago, Houston and Phoenix and is rolling out nationwide. 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. I felt like I kind of joked with Jeff Loveness on this, but I was like, Did you just watch 300 and write my character? Because it was a lot of like those single line, Get to the tower!, and just kind of like silly one liners and things that felt reminiscent of a lot of those just straight up warrior movies. How difficult was it to play the straight woman when everyone around you gets to be fairly silly in the early scenes? "We Need to Talk About Kevin" is a movie adaptation of Lionel Shriver's novel with the same title. Kevin does things to Eva in this movie that are so cruel that an evil demon seems to be regarding her from his eyes. This review of the film was originally published on December 22, 2011. The non-linear approach makes the somewhat inevitable events more powerful and though Miller is effective as Kevin, younger actor Newell actually impressed me even more. Jake Martin, SJ, is a Jesuit priest, comedian and writer. Some of the content presented on our sites has been provided by fans, other unofficial websites or online news sources, and is the sole responsibility of the source from which it was obtained. He completely denies the reality of Kevin's personality and identity, and thus any agency over their relationship. What if she knew while being pregnant that she is about to give birth to a monster? We Need to Talk About Kevin : r/books. Does their parental neglect make them culpable for the lives he took? A bright light appears outside. Directed by Lynne Ramsey The real monster is expecting nothing less than unconditional love. Go do something. In 1975, he won the Pulitzer Prize for distinguished criticism. The film moves without any pattern between past, present and who knows when. We Need to Talk About Kevin is already playing in NYC; it opens today in LA, Chicago, Houston and Phoenix and is rolling out nationwide. The red paint of vandals stains her car and the front of her house. The brooding tone of the narrative prepares the audience for a devastating ending, but in hindsight, some of you may have seen it coming. ANT-MAN AND THE WASP: QUANTUMANIA Star Katy O'Brian On Deleted Bill Murray Scene, Backstory & More (Exclusive). According to medical practitioners, psychopaths are born so, while sociopathy is a result of conditioning in childhood. It's been 10 years since its world premiere at Cannes, and we need to talk about what made it such a haunting meditation on motherhood. Based on Lionel Shriver's 2003 bestseller of the same name, Lynne Ramsay's 2011 film explores a broken family, mental illness, and the aftermath of a tragedy. Kevin was not necessarily abused or tortured as a child, many kids endure much worse and did not end up as mass killers. While the film isn't as explicit as the book, both versions of Eva are grappling with Kevin's final answer as they wonder if it's even worth feeling weighed down by the question of responsibility. In You Were Never Really Here, Joaquin Phoenix was a hitman beset by PTSD. She could move away for a fresh start, but she's shown setting up a room for him, complete with his navy blue bedding and Robin Hood book. But Kevin is just getting started, and his final act will be beyond anything anyone imagined. Ramsay builds on Shriver's idea of internalised blame with how Eva sees herself following the tragedy. Starring: Tilda Swinton, Ezra Miller, John C. Reilly. We cling to guidelines like the length of Tilda Swinton's hair to figure out where we are. She frames Eva's discomfort against overjoyed mothers showing off their baby bumps in a pre-natal yoga class. She has something of an answer as to why Kevin committed such terrors, but where does that leave her? Through association and contextualization, it becomes evident that Kevin killed his father and sister with the new and powerful bow and arrow that he received as a Christmas present from his father. 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. Franklin himself lives in a state of demented decency, deceiving himself that his family are living acceptable lives. We Need to Talk About Kevin (2011) photos, including production stills, premiere photos and other event photos, publicity photos, behind-the-scenes, and more. it's difficult to accept why Eva keeps visiting her son in jail, at one point even asking why he did it. Copyright | Psychology Today describes the "nature vs. nurture" debate as questioning how both elements impact a person's characteristics. Instead, maternal ambivalence is coded as horror. While Eva is growing increasingly distrustful of Kevin, Franklin sides with his son and their marriage takes a hit. His son is who Franklin says he is, and anything else is just invisible. Any spoilers should be placed in spoiler tags as such. Super-Hero partners Scott Lang (Paul Rudd) and Hope van Dyne (Evangeline Lilly) return to continue their adventures as Ant-Man and the Wasp. Unfortunately, Eva either doesnt know or refuses to know what a more meaningful relationship with her son would look like; thus when their dinner begins with her asking him how school is going, Kevin immediately shuts her down, offering up a clichd mother/son dialogue full of rote questions and deadened responses. Finally. Eva finally asks why he did it. Votes are used to help determine the most interesting content on RYM. GameStop Moderna Pfizer Johnson & Johnson AstraZeneca Walgreens Best Buy Novavax SpaceX Tesla. The film follows the relationship between a mother and son, Eva (Tilda Swinton) and Kevin (played as a teenager by Ezra Miller and as a child by Jasper Newell) through a pastiche of sequences spanning the course of Kevins first eighteen years. ", Did Kevin internalize her hatred of him, or is she just feeding into his innate instability? Kevin chooses to conceal the incident from Franklin. After you see the film, think about it. Plus, she also touches on a potentially big deleted scene that would've seen her cross paths with Krylar (Bill Murray) and teases possible beef with Janet van Dyne (Michelle Pfeiffer). Eva's elation is reflected in the room's warm yellows and flowers on the bedside table. About Press Copyright Contact us Creators Advertise Developers Terms Privacy Policy & Safety How YouTube works Test new features Press Copyright Contact us Creators . A prolific writer and the ostensible head of a travel agency, Eva cares more about her own unfulfilled wishes than her ever-menacing son. This is not entirely his fault. Read More: Best Movies About Mental Illness. Years later, the birth of her daughter Celia, on the other hand, feels more festive. Ramsay improves on Shriver's portrait of a mother with an honesty that leaves us thinking about Eva long after the credits roll. The most horrendous thing for her to stomach is not that his misanthropy and violence is really exotic and foreign; the thing that is really horrendous is that she recognises it only too well, because it comes from her. The most plausible answer is that Kevin killed the family to hurt his mother. Written by Julia Wolf. His willful misbehaviors continue as his mother becomes more estranged from him. Prefer Ramsay's earlier pictures to this flawed but interesting piece. Or did Kevin turned this way because she messed him up from the very birth. It doesn't gel with what has come before, where Eva seems to accept her son's innate cruelty, and is looking for a way to escape. 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. SPOILERS AHEAD. If this were an act of self-penance it might make sense, but there's no real sense Eva is doing it out of guilt either. The second is Kevin's bedroom. Updated Date: Maybe everything else is intended to be a flashback, and the timeline begins when she finds out what Kevin did at his high school. The novel by Lionel Shriver relates the story through a series of letters Eva writes to her husband Franklin. Privacy | Kevin is neither rational nor articulate enough to identify his desire, that is, to have an authentic and fully realized relationship with his mother. Kevin grows a liking for the fictional character of Robin Hood, and his father gifts him a bow and arrow. Where do you think Jentorra's story goes next? He is pursuing a Licentiate in Sacred Theology at Heythrop College in London. 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. The ending of the film leaves Eva's fate up in the air. Ironically he becomes a miniature doppelganger of her, all sharp angles and androgynous countenance lying in direct contrast to the lovably rounded and craggy features of his father. Annie Graham in Hereditary is conflicted by feelings of love and hate, resentment and remorse, towards her son. It'd be so much fun. So is Amelia in The Babadook. He completely denies the reality of Kevin's personality and identity, and thus any agency over their relationship. Stripping the screenplay off words, the disturbance arises from a seamless amalgamation of image and sound. Also, stripes are a striking feature that connects Kevins clothing sense from childhood to adolescence. You couldnt have possibly thought that seeing someone eat lychee would be so distressing, but Ezra Miller makes it happen. Likewise, don't respond to trollish comments; just report them and ignore them. The Ending Of We Need To Talk About Kevin Explained. The film depicts him as a psychopath beyond redemption. It is a world where any attempts to offer a message of mercy, conversion and redemption must be done deftly and authentically, because at the end of the day, sometimes the community wont rally around you and more often than not Mr. Potter carries the day. There are two really great examples of this: the first is the bow. We see her birthing of him as rather fraught and his incessant crying drives her nearly mad. Her public perception is unlikely to change, but Eva appears firm in her choice to stick around for Kevin's sake. "We Need to Talk About Kevin" leans into that debate, showcasing a resentful mother, a passive father, and a child with an untreated mental illness. Scan this QR code to download the app now. Swinton told me of a line in the script that wasn't used, wisely, I believe. Fast forward to fifteen year old Kevin, and we can see that this habit has become his worldview. He grows into a spiteful toddler, refusing to say "mommy" and egging on her frustrations. Kevin abused his mother because she developed a relationship with him where he could have honest interactions with her if he did. Rated the #74 best film of 2011, and #5264 in the greatest all-time movies (according to RYM users). March 1, 2023, 6:00 a.m. Lionel Shriver's source novel is a quirky, disturbing take on the high school killer story. Kevin grows up, and the family moves to an affluent neighborhood in their very own castle. However, she created a pattern whereby she only expresses herself to Kevin through disgust and fear. The bed, the gown, and the walls bleed into each other in their cold whiteness, externalising her inner state of mind. Though unlike the Shakespearean character, the question of Evas guilt has a lot less cut-and-dried answer. Now I'm not so sure." While we are not sure whether Kevin consumed the eye itself, we know from the book that Kevin keeps Celias glass eye as a souvenir after assailing her. Matters worsen when she becomes pregnant with a daughter. At one point, she mockingly coos at him, "Mommy was happy before little Kevin came along. And so is Eva. Though Ramsay does away with Eva as a first-person narrator in the film, she still retains Eva's point-of-view throughout. He hates Eva for a plethora of reasons her neglect, her coldness towards Kevin, and Franklins misguided overcompensation for the lack of Evas love. You know, it's all fun and games until you really understand that every single decision that you make impacts everybody. 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