We Need to Talk about Kevin

Demon spawn is birthed in Lynne Ramsay's We Need to Talk about Kevin and provided with access to a vindictive bow.  Eva Khatchadourian (Tilda Swinton) isn't the most outwardly loving mother/person and Kevin (Ezra Miller, Jasper Newell, Rock Duer) is by no means a happy responsive son. Seen through the lens of Eva's guilt ridden memories, being alive and eventually having to contribute to the continuing development of a community seems to have caused Kevin no end of pain. As he ages, this pain transforms into wickedness as he finds ways to disruptively take part. Possessing a bleak miserable cynical outlook, he flagitiously predicts the outcomes of various interactions with mom and does his best to ensure they flourish repeatedly.

All the while getting along well with his father (John C. Reilly) and enjoying the comforts of a suburban lifestyle.

The film itself is cunning, cutting, and challenging, generating pathos and humour within its sardonically stark yet traumatically playful frames. It juxtaposes parenting methodologies with communal judgments while stoically capturing a subject's helpless resolve as she formulaically attempts to domestically enact a traditional characterization of a mother's role while remaining unable to convincingly fake the requisite emotion. Kevin seemingly makes her pay for her dispassion by doing everything he can to provoke her rage. After one significant miscue, she retreats into an apathetic posture with the intent of never displaying her reckless anger again. Little Kevin becomes increasingly sinister, his dad maintains that boys will be boys, and dread tempered with disbelief crystallizes deep within her psyche.

We Need to Talk about Kevin uses the opposition established between demon spawn and reluctant mother to comic effect while making you feel guilty for finding parts of it funny. The bits of dark humour are intermittently interjected between the aftershocks of Kevin's calculated psychotic rampage which display Eva's unfortunate neighbourly predicament from multiple interpersonal angles. Hence, the mood shifts frequently and is orchestrated with a subtle expertise which disables one-dimensional attachments while still managing to sustain an appealing fluid uniformity (the mood creatively changes but as each scene takes on a life of its own they become united through the act of continuous non-chaotic formal diversification), these mood shifts reflecting the internal psychological dilemmas publicly banished from Eva's complacent demeanour.

It's well done.