Must have seen the trailer for We Need to Talk About Kevin about half a dozen times over recent cinema visits but unlike Melancholia it just heightened my anticipation and, by the numbers that were in the early bird screening today, I wasn't alone.
It's based on the novel by Lionel Shriver about a mother coming to terms with an appalling act of violence carried out by her son and questioning her part in shaping him into a someone capable of such an act.
The story flits backwards and forwards from before Kevin's conception to his mother visiting him in prison putting the pieces together that lead up to the dispicable act.
From the opening sequence where Eva (Tilda Swinton) is enjoying a festival in France which involves everyone smothering themselves in tomatoes to scraping off the first lot of paint smeared on her house post Kevin's trial, red becomes a powerful motif. It is an ambiguous colour symbolic of both love and horror and summing up nicely Eva's feeling for her son from his birth.
Swinton's is the outstanding performance. Here is an actress who isn't afraid to take on controversial part and be au naturale in front of the camera at times not wearing a shread of make-up. Sadly I don't think Hollywood will be giving her an award for being ugly *coughs Charlize Theron in Monster* even though she deserve every accolade going. She has a wonderful naturalness on screen so that enables her to bare the soul of Eva to the audience.
Eva is a woman who was once a travelling, free-spirit who throws herself into motherhood only to find herself with a difficult and manipulative child with whom she can't connect. And you can see it tearing her apart with frustration and regret.
Ezra Miller should also get a mention as the older Kevin. It is a role with few words but a character of dual personality - Kevin behaves very differently with his father - and it would be easy to over bake the performance but he seems to follow Swinton's lead.
We Need to Talk About Kevin, ironically as the name suggests, leave much to talk about. It's an emotionally gripping and shattering film and I hope it wins awards because it deserves it on so many levels.
It's getting 86% from me, over on IMDb it's got 78% but no Metacritic score yet while on Rotten Tomatoes it has 91% from 41 critics and 83% of visitors rated it 3 and a half stars or more.
Would totally agree with your review and would acho that this film had a pleasing lack of linearity. However, I was faintly irritated by the rather excessive over-labouring of symbolic colour. For us, this is film 2 of 3 this week (Tyrannosaur on saturday, Kevin on monday and to crown it all... Johnny English tomorrow!).
Posted by: Simon Pudsey | 10/25/2011 at 08:56 PM
Johnny English? Really? And three films in a week - you should write a blog ;0)
Posted by: Rev Stan | 10/25/2011 at 09:17 PM