We Need to Talk About Kevin is an amazing film. A couple of friends recommended We Need to Talk About Kevin, and it didn’t take many words: Tilda Swinton! Done! I’m there. You should be too and no multitasking. Give the movie your complete attention.
We Need to Talk About Kevin is about a woman grappling with her own existence in relation to the world before, during and after her experiences as Kevin’s mother. The events in We Need to Talk About Kevin do not unfold linearly. Swinton is always in the midst of some emotional turmoil as the mother of Kevin, but it is always a new type of emotional turmoil. Just when she is close to returning to her true self-a writer, a traveler, escaping the gravitational pull of how she should act or feel, someone who is happy, gives and receives love, Kevin is there to suck her back into his black hole. The question that haunts Swinton’s character is how much is she responsible for Kevin’s life or was he always a mother’s nightmare even if she handled his turbulence with more equanimity?
We Need to Talk About Kevin is a discombobulating viewing experience from the opening scenes. I constantly found myself asking when and where are we and what is happening. When you get to one pivotal scene in the middle, you suddenly realize that you probably know everything that is going to happen, but you’re not quite sure. How far can things go?
We Need to Talk About Kevin is shot beautifully. We Need to Talk About Kevin’s palette is so captivating and memorable that I didn’t want to blink. The cast is unbelievable. The various actors playing Kevin were a little too good for my taste. Yikes, someone check on those kids’ parents. Any world where Swinton ends up married to John C. Reilly, who is an excellent actor, but a pairing that I would never dream up, is bound to be a surreal one. The entire movie is a masterpiece, and every little personal interaction with Swinton and any other character is powerful.
We Need to Talk About Kevin is every woman’s nightmare about becoming a wife and mother. Every day, marriage is about compromising, which isn’t innately bad and quite necessary, but if you were not REALLY willing to make that compromise then have to live with an unsatisfactory result and are left with the bag of thorny consequences from doing what someone else wants, then maybe you shouldn’t.
Even though the protagonist is a woman, We Need to Talk About Kevin is a cautionary tale for men too. If you marry Swinton, don’t try to make her into something else. If you fell in love with and married a traveling writer who loves NYC, maybe don’t encourage her to stop traveling, stop writing and stop living in NYC then wonder why she is different and moody. If you’re better with the kid, maybe tell her to go to work, and you stay home with the kid. If she says that there is something wrong, don’t dismiss her concerns. You do not have to match the image of the perfect family. You don’t have to have a bigger house. You’re on the same team with your wife, not your kid. Everything isn’t always going to be OK, and that is OK. Pretending like it is OK is idiocy.
Loving your kid does not mean that your kid never does anything wrong. Love your kid, but recognize that all kids will pit their parents against each other to get what they want. The kids don’t want you to split up. Kids want to win. Be smarter than your kid. When your wife is wrong, do not confront her in front of the kid. Same advice applies for wives to husbands. You’re the team. Do no harm. Do your best for your kid, but your kid is going to leave one day, and you’ll be stuck with yourselves and hopefully each other.
SPOILER
After Columbine, it seemed to be universally agreed that the two killers’ parents were amazing people, and no one blamed them. I didn’t entirely buy that people would blame her for Kevin’s actions, especially since she lost her husband and daughter to his rampage. Yes, she may be regarded as a grotesque spectacle and a cautionary tale, but so persecuted? Nope.
