Short(ish) review #1

We Need To Talk About Kevin (2011)

Previously, I gave a very short review of this film when looking back at the Oscars. Here comes a much lengthy review of it. This won't feature in my top 30, because I started that before I had even heard of or become aware of this film. However, it will definitely be in the revised top 50 or 100 or whatever number it will be. The last time I saw a film as chilling as this, that wasn't a horror film, was Taxi Driver.

The main character of the film is Eva Khatchadourian (Tilda Swinton). She has to put aside her career as a travel writer, so that she and her husband Franklin (John C. Reilly) can have a baby. Eva gives birth to a baby son, who they call Kevin. However, it turns out there is not the best relationship between mother and son. You do feel sorry for Eva, because straightaway you see that Kevin is a little s***. As a toddler, he is silent and won't speak to her. At ages 6-8, he wets himself deliberately, he swears and he vandalises Eva's study. As a teenager (Ezra Miller), he puts a virus on Eva's computer and picks on his little sister. There is a scene where Eva goes into Kevin's room and it is so organised and so tidy, that you can only think this kid is not normal.

The film is based on the Orange Prize winning novel by Lionel Shriver. There is a quote from her on the poster - "A brilliant adaptation of my novel". This might sound like self-publicity and an over-inflated ego, but there are famous cases of authors not appreciating the film adaptation of their works. The most famous example is Stephen King's The Shining. He hated the film adaptation by Stanley Kubrick, but that is for another time. The structure of this film is one of the most interesting parts of it, the way it flickers from the present to different periods of Kevin's growing up. It is as if Eva is looking back and wondering where did it all go wrong.

This was Lynne Ramsay's first film in nine years. Back then it was Morvern Callar and in 2000, she won a BAFTA for Most Promising Newcomer for Ratcatcher. A few years ago, she was scheduled to write and direct a film adaptation of the book The Lovely Bones with Film4 Productions. However, they shutdown in July 2002 and Lynne left the project in 2004, because the producers wanted a version that was close to the source material and they felt hers wasn't. A film adaptation was made years later, directed by Peter Jackson, and it was at best flawed. For We Need To Talk About Kevin, there were budgetary difficulties which slowed production. BBC Films acquired the rights to adapt it in 2005, but because funding difficulties, filming began in April 2010 and ended just over a month later. It only cost $7 million, which doesn't seem like much compared to most films.

The film premiered at the 2011 Cannes Film Festival, where it generated positive reviews and a nomination for the Palme d'Or (losing out to The Tree of Life). There were numerous awards and nominations for Tilda Swinton, including nominations for a BAFTA and a Golden Globe. She even shared the Kermode Award for Best Actress with Olivia Coleman for her performance in Tyrannosaur. Swinton's performance is brilliant and it is good to see John C. Reilly in a serious role. However, there is a star in the making for Ezra Miller. He must have attracted the attention of a large number of directors for his portrayal of Kevin. Watch out for him in the future.

Furthermore, this is the last film that you would expect to hear a Wham song in...