We Need To Talk About
Kevin
Directed By: Lynne
Ramsey
Written By: Lynne
Ramsey and Rory Kinnear, based on the novel by Lionel Shriver
Starring: Tilda
Swinton, John C. Riley, Ezra Miller, Jasper Newell, Rock Duer, and Ashley
Gerasimovich
Director of Photography: Seamus McGarvey, Editor: Joe Bini,
Production Designer: Judy Becker, Original Music: Jonny Greenwood
Rated: R for
disturbing violence and a bit of sexuality.
Thrown
against the screen like paint against a canvas by Jackson Pollock, We Need to Talk About Kevin is a pop art
explosion of subjective destruction. Nothing is subtle in Lynne Ramsey’s first
film in almost a decade, its bold colors captured on screen without finesse and
layered with abstract compositions that clash against each other like runaway
trains. Ms. Ramsey’s film feels more indebted to the work of Tony Scott and
Michael Bay than any art house, which may drive some out of the theaters, but
its all centered around her extremely sly and brash narrative, focusing on a
mother and her very troubled little son.
Adapted
by Ms. Ramsey and Rory Kinnear from the novel by Lionel Shriver, We Need to Talk About Kevin follows a
mother in the wake of a high school killing spree. But she’s not the mother of
one of the slain children; her son is the killer. It’s tricky and what could be
banal melodramatic material for a film, but Ms. Ramsey, whose previous films
include Ratcatcher and Monvern Caller, is not one to play
things simple. Ms. Shriver’s novel is a series of letters to her husband
following the tragedy, and Ms. Ramsey abandons all similarity to a film that makes
it the subjective experience of a mind that has been fragmented and shattered.
