We Need To Talk About Kevin
Review by Anthony Morris
|
|
|
We Need To Talk About Kevin
|
|
A film adaptation of a book needs to stand alone.
There's not much of an audience for a film that expects you to have the original book with you and open at the same time. Which is why reviewing We Need To Talk About Kevin
gets a little tricky : having read the book, it's obvious that director
Lynne Ramsay has done an excellent job of re-creating the novel's
unreliable narrator in visual terms.
If you haven't read the book, the way We Need To Talk About Kevin
skims over much of the plot details in favour of presenting events as
fragmented memories means you might not actually figure out what’s
meant to be going on. Eva (Tilda Swinton) is drifting through a life seemingly ruined by something her son Kevin (Ezra Miller) did in the past. Red
paint is thrown over her doorstep; middle-aged women hit her in the
face on the street. While she accepts this punishment as her due,
constant flashbacks fill in her past with her husband Franklin (John C
Reilly) and the son they had together. Even as a baby Eva
didn't feel much of a connection with Kevin, a purposefully wilful
child who refused to learn anything in front of her in case it gave her
some satisfaction. He only became toilet trained when she
(accidentally) broke his arm while toilet-training, and the battle of
wills between them only gets worse as he grows older. The
"evil child" genre is a well established one down the trashier end of
the horror genre; what separated the novel from, say, Orphan was it’s
focus on the mother's lack of connection with her (male) child,
touching on the guilt many mothers have at not instantly and
passionately falling in love with their own child.
We Need To Talk About Kevin skims
over this – in fact, the film largely skims over everything, presenting
us with a woman all but in a fugue state, drifting through life
surrounded by the shattered, muddled pieces of her past.
Unfortunately,
without having already read the novel, what's on screen is often a
little too effective at re-creating Eva’s feeling of being lost.
As a film, We Need To Talk About Kevin is impressive, haunting stuff : as an adaptation of the novel, it leaves a lot to be desired.
3.5 out
of 5
We Need To Talk About Kevin
Australian release: 17th November,
2011
Official
Site: We Need To Talk About Kevin
Cast: Tilda Swinton, John C. Reilly, Ezra Miller
Director: Lynne Ramsay
|
