One Minute Review: We Need To Talk About Kevin (2012)

We Need To Talk About Kevin

Eerie and psychological, “We Need To Talk About Kevin” is one-half “The Omen”, one-half “Beautiful Boy” combining the horrific events of a school shooting with the deteriorating home life between Eva (Tilda Swinton), the mother, and Kevin, the detached child is may or may not be the spawn of the devil. Where the director Lynne Ramsay hits gold is by never actually touching on that idea and alluding to anything else but. There’s obviously something psychologically wrong with Kevin, as he blackmails and relentlessly plays mind games with Eva, but acting normal around his father, Franklin (John C. Reilly).

Tilda Swinton delivers one of the best performances of 2012, with her eye-ing nature and edginess boosting the horrific platform of the film. The child actor playing Kevin, along with Ezra Miller playing older Kevin, both create the perfect embodiment of tangible evil in Kevin, projecting a believability yet untamed evil simultaneously. Without these pivotal performances, the eeriness of the film would dissipate quickly. The darkness that this narrative hits on is chilling, allowing for an old school horror feel that is hard to recreate. The staggered story structure also allows for a disorientation needed to complete the spine-tingling mood throughout. “We Need To Talk About Kevin” is one of the most impressive bits of pseudo-horror in recent memory.