It seems that after any human-instigated atrocity, mankind is left to question “Why”? And the film adaption of We need to talk about Kevin leaves you wondering exactly that. No attempt is made to answer the question directly, and that’s the poetic beauty of it. It’s a rare kind of psychological thriller, gripping and fascinating yet awkwardly uncomfortable.
The adaption of the novel by Lionel Shriver follows mother, Eva Khatchadourian, a writer turned mother, whose teenage son has committed mass-murder at his school. The film leaves heaps to the imagination yet provides subtle graphic representations of the blood bath her son created, shown through referencing to red substances, be it tomatoes, jam, paint or the red flash of the alarm clock. The story poses the ultimate question, without pointing to much of an answer; can people be inherently evil or is it their environment that creates the evil within them?
The story is shown through the eyes of Eva (Tilda Swinton), a character with intense dignity, rationality yet moments of utter despair. Her tortured memories are strung together to create a loose chronology of Kevin’s life; his conception right through to his adolescence, the crime itself and the eventual consequence. The character of Kevin is a haunting one; a boy with some form of charm, an intelligent menace with chilling psychopathic behaviours. Eva attempts to jigsaw together her bland present-day reality with the traumatic memories of the events that put her there.
A dark humour can be found throughout the film, with the audience perhaps laughing whilst feeling guilty for being amused by some of Kevin’s actions and Eva’s responses. We witness memories that maybe she regrets, but the scenes remain ambiguous and open to an interpretation. The title expresses the need to talk about Kevin, and you wait to hear this line played out but it never comes. Eva is never able to do this. No discussions of Kevin’s behaviour are ever had and that’s what makes the film sometimes hard to emotionally connect to, just depositing curiosity and a cold shiver.
Kevin is a son who constantly defies his mother with a blank, evil stare; a stare he possesses from a young age. Ezra Miller plays Kevin with malice and demure and looking into his stare you are reminded of the reoccurring question; you continue asking why? The disconnection in the mother-son relationship is sometimes painful to watch, especially with the contrast of the father-son relationship, with John C. Reilly, ditching his traditional Will Ferrel-esque humour and taking on the more serious role. You question at what point it went wrong. At times, you sympathise with the boy and at times with Eva, neither seem to get it quite right. Despite Kevin’s sociopathic behaviour, the family resemblance isn’t unclear, aspects of Eva’s personality are cold and remote and there are subtle moments when you see the traditional mother-son relationship, leaving you questioning her sanity and her role in Kevin’s actions.
The build up to the crime is nearly unbearable at times, waiting for the constant metaphors of the red substances to manifest into the inevitable reality. Violent collisions happen in small doses throughout, Kevin implied as being responsible for the death of the family pet, responsible for his younger sisters missing eye and eventually responsible for mass levels of torturous murders. The build up is so gradual, almost a little slow but leaves you scared to look away.
As the credits for the film roll, you’re left with total silence. No more of the haunting ambient score created by Radiohead’s Jonny Greenwood. The silence marks the need for a moment to reflect, a moment to ask that question of why? It’s reassuring that the film doesn’t commit the cliché of falling back on ‘some people are just born evil’ but neither does it attempt to provide a psychologically convincing answer. It is the mystery and the hook that drives the story forward. It seems that in the knowledge of never gaining any answers and continuously questioning human morality, we will be talking about Kevin for some time to come.
