We Need to Talk About Kevin (2011)

The Worst Film Ever

A lot more amusing than I thought it would be.

It is not deep, but it is fun to watch. It does have a bit more of an edge to it than other similar films.

The movie really just wants to entertain people.

Having had 5 children AND a software engineering career, I know how hard it is to raise children AND have a career and of course, you are always conflicted. This woman is a complete dolt, unforgivingly forgiving her monster son for blinding in one eye, their daughter and staying with the dolt of a husband who blindly favors his son, never blaming him for anything. Wonder how much truth there is with the school shooters. But only the Conn. kid killed his mom first. Wish I knew how similar this story is to the actual school shootings.Tilda Swinton at least plays the mother as a low self esteem creep, emotionally dependent upon her egotistical husband, pulled screaming AND KICKING INTO MOTHERHOOD.

'We Need To Talk About Kevin (2011)' is almost like a puzzle, one that doesn't have a definitive solution but is an enigma nonetheless. It unravels itself in a loose, dynamic way in which the very fabric of the film is used as a canvas for the central character's trauma to be splashed across the screen, explored in a volatile and vibrant way that gives a real sense of some sort of post-traumatic stress. This is not a film that holds your hand, nor is it even interested in answering any of the questions it asks, not directly anyway. Instead, it portrays its perhaps controversial events in a dream-like fashion, exuding a sense of an inescapable past that might as well be happening now. It's like our protagonist is wading through a waking nightmare, unable to move on from the events that shape the film both in her head and on the streets. It's a fantastic decision, then, to put us directly in that mindset, to force us to face her fears as she does the same. We are never outside of this story, never above its characters. Instead, we are right there with them, behind their eyes, seeing exactly what they see and still just as powerless to stop it. Not only is the direction, and the decision to edit it non-linearly, perfect, but so are the performances. The eponymous kid is quite creepy, though only in the most mundane of senses, and we simultaneously feel sorry for him, want to empathise with him and truly fear him. It's only natural to be afraid of what you can't understand and the central debate, of nature vs nurture, is expertly told almost exclusively through visuals. Until, that is, the feature's only misstep, which is still a minor one, that sees the final scene dip deeper into dialogue than ever before and almost over-explain it all. Thankfully, restraint takes hold before this sequence reaches its tipping point, so it just sticks out as its most unsuccessful moment as opposed to a totally tone-deaf and destructive one. In the end, we are perhaps no closer to understanding why the events of the film happened the way they did. Certainly, there are theories you can come up with, little hints here and there that could suggest motive. That's perhaps its most realistic aspect, though. The lack of a proper, and inherently cinematic, resolution that ties everything up in a little bow. Real life isn't like that. It's messy and sometimes it doesn't make sense. People do things without good reasons, regardless of their mentalities. The lack of a definitive answer is the best full-stop the feature could have provided. Because if we want to understand the character, and prevent things like this from continuing to happen in real-life, we need to talk about Kevin. 7/10

The story is simply not making any sense. Evil does not look like this at all. The relationships do not match anything sensical in real life. Nothing that the kid does would really lead to murder. We need a real story of mass killer but this is not it.

The primary problem with the story is that the novelist, screenplay writers, director, and audience don't understand parenting a psychopath. If you haven't born and raised your own psychopath, don't write about or direct it. The lack of authenticity comes from this primary problem. The other problems are in the randomly sequenced, redundant scenes, and extremely slow pace.