lionel shriver we need to talk about kevin

The actual massacre is wisely kept mostly offscreen and instead recalled through a reoccurring motif of the colour red that filters through the picture’s veins for its entire running time: from the unforgettable opening at a Spanish festival where a crowd of people drowns themselves with tomato viscera to the red paint splattered on her house by vandals, which Eva spends her days scrubbing away at. Ramsay’s direction is confident and composed. We Need To Talk About Kevin Reinvents Bad-Seed Horror as a Beautifully Rendered Hell

It becomes clear in Eva’s mind that she feels an immense amount of guilt for the actions of her son but tries to also convince herself that he was just born that way, evil from birth, but was he? We Need To Talk About Kevinis the type of film that is bound to raise debate about nature versus upbringing, but again this is not the point of the film.

It’s about Swinton’s Eva, her guilt, regret, and loss therefore the movie largely takes place in her tormented mind. One would assume the movie is about its titular character, but the movie really isn’t about Kevin at all. When anyone else is present the boy appears to be an innocent. Notice how Kevin only shows his true colours when he and his mom are alone together. We Need To Talk About Kevin is all about perception – in this case, in how Eva perceives the world, how she regards her son, and how she views situations in her past. Many critics have criticized the film for the character’s portrayal, but they seem to be missing the point. Kevin himself is over the top, cartoonish, and seemingly born bad he seems lifted from the pages of the latest Stephen King novel. We Need to Talk about Kevin comes across best as a bad parenting / bad-seed horror movie, and if you would like to classify it as such, it might just be the best genre film of 2011. That sentiment describes Lynne Ramsay’s controversial feature, her first in nine years ever since her brilliant and overlooked Morvern Callar. Eva looks them deep in the eyes and tells them simply: “I’m going straight to hell.” Early on in the film, two young Mormon boys arrive at her front door to discuss the afterlife.

Terrorized by members of the community ever since the terrible tragedy, she becomes increasingly paranoid, ashamed, and deeply depressed. Based on the book by Lionel Shriver, We Need to Talk About Kevin paints an evocative portrait of Eva, who’s suffering through a deep post-traumatic shock after her son, Kevin, commits a horrendous crime.

Lionel shriver we need to talk about kevin