We Need to Talk About Kevin
Movie, 2011, R; Book, 2003
EDIT: 3/20/21 - I read the book version, and have updated this entry to be inclusive of both formats. Originally this review was exclusive to the film.
Premise - A woman must give up her life of travel and adventure when she realizes she and her husband are pregnant with a child. She gives birth to a baby boy, Kevin, with whom she immediately fails to find emotional connection. The film cuts back and forth between the aftermath of some unknown horrific event, and her life as a parent attempting to bring up this disturbed child. The book is written in an epistolary format, with the mother writing to her husband to reflect about the things she's noticed about Kevin over the years and how she feels about him now.
Review - This was a powerful, thought-provoking, and heartbreaking story, both in film and novel. I took a lot from it, but it's definitely not for the faint of heart. I suppose what's most gutting about it is its current relevance, despite the original novel being from the early 2000's, and the film being released in 2011.
My first introduction to this story was the film, which is very visually interesting; incredibly artsy. It screams indie film from the very opening shot and keeps up that momentum throughout. Within the first two scenes, I was already trying to pick up on motifs and repeated film techniques (i.e. the color red), and the framing... this is a great film to cinematically dissect.
The plot of the entire movie is the audience trying to figure out what the plot is. It's classified as a mystery, but there's no mystery the characters experience - it's all on our end. The film jumps across time and lets us see the contrast between the mother in the present and the past. Therefore, to talk about the plot of this movie at all, I'm going to have to spoil the entire thing. Which, to be fair, the book reveals its plot within the first few chapters. Watching it back, the plot was so very obvious that the film may has well have revealed itself early - perhaps I was just too naive to have guessed the plot the first time I had watched it.
This is a story about raising a psychopathic child - and it's very clear from the start. You cannot technically diagnose a teenager with antisocial personality disorder, but those are all the symptoms he seems to be showing. Especially in the book, we see the details of Kevin struggling to understand joy. A key theory behind antisocial personality disorder is faulty reward pathways in the brain. Kevin sees people find things they love, that they're passionate about, and it genuinely confuses him. There is not a single thing he has ever been able to enjoy, and that makes him upset. In fact, he struggles to feel much of anything at all, and the feelings of others are somewhat of a mockery to him. He also has the manipulative charm and intelligence of common perpetrators of mass violence, also with antisocial personality disorder.
Diagnoses aside, this is a messed up a kid. The entire time I was frustrated with how they never took him to see a child psychiatrist or psychologist. Not once. The one time they took him to the pediatrician, the mom asks if maybe he has autism, and the doctor's like "Nah, I wouldn't worry about it" WORST DOCTOR OF THE YEAR AWARD GOES TO HIM. THAT IS A DISTURBED CHILD HOW DO YOU NOT SEE THAT. Like seriously, even if they didn't think autism was the answer... that kid was suffering, and the parents were suffering. A lot could have been solved in this film, or at least aided, with some professional help.
To address the title, who is it that needs to talk about Kevin? I think we all do. We need to really have more conversations and discourse about juveniles who commit violent crimes, and how to prevent crimes in school settings. And, to be honest, this is a very controversial take to have, as there's a lot of discourse around not wanting to glamorize perpetrators of mass violence. That's why I think we need to have these conversations through fictional mediums instead.
So, spoiler alert, he shoots up a school. Not with guns, but with a bow and arrow, after he locks people in a confined space. This film therefore has nothing to do with gun control, but the mental state of perpetrator, and particularly the relationship between the perpetrator and the parents.
Think about it... all these kids that ended up being school shooters... they had families. I don't know how close they were with their families, but they had families. Ted Bundy had parents. The Columbine shooters had parents (and one of the parents actually did a Ted Talk about it!) The difficult thing about being one of these parents is there is so much shame and guilt. They either question "How come we didn't see it coming?" or "Why did I fail as a parent?" On top of that, all of society is shaming these parents as well, especially the ones who are grieving their own losses and want somebody to blame. People also want to play into the narrative of a poor, abused kid, who was bullied or otherwise ostracized by family and friends.
This was not some poor, innocent mother who was blindsided. She knew her kid was disturbed, and she was partially responsible. I don't believe in assigning blame, but it'd be just plain incorrect to say she didn't have an influence on her child and the acts he committed. The difficult thing is there seems to be no "right" way to parent these difficult children, but it's easy to point out all the "wrong" ways. She was far too distant with him when he was a baby, she never gave him enough attention, she always made him feel guilty for being alive because she had to give up her life to care for him... she once even THREW HIM ON THE GROUND AND BROKE HIS ARM. I know most of the people walk away from this film thinking, "Oh gosh, that poor mom. What an awful kid!" but you gotta also remember "Oh gosh, that poor kid. What an awful mom!" in a way that does not frame Kevin's entire character arc as one of abuse.
By the end of the film, Kevin is not able to clearly articulate why he did it. There's a fantastic quote in the book about how there's endless value in deconstruction... we cannot necessarily understand fully what goes on inside Kevin's head. But I think I know the heart of why he did it. He wanted attention. You can see the quote below for evidence that he wanted attention from the world, but I think most of all, he wanted his mother's attention. He killed literally everyone in his family, and his classmates - everyone EXCEPT his mother. Because he wanted his mother to be around to watch. I believe he had a quote like, if you're going to perform, why kill your audience? And people like this get all the attention in the world, real or fictional. Here I am gushing about a movie about a school shooter, does that make me part of the problem?
What almost felt most frustrating is nobody but the mother lived to see what Kevin had become. Kevin always kept a certain persona around his father, that he was a normal, sweet kid. I wanted the father to see the violent side of Kevin, so he would finally believe that his mother wasn't being paranoid. But we never get that satisfaction. The mom has to live alone, being the only one who truly knows what kind of person her son truly is. (90/100)
Quote - "It's like this: you wake and watch
TV, get in your car and listen to the radio you go to your little jobs
or little school, but you don't hear about that on the 6 o'clock news,
why? 'Cause nothing is really happening, and you go home and watch some
more TV and maybe it's a fun night and you go out and watch a movie. I
mean it's got so bad that half the people on TV, inside the TV, they're
watching TV. What are these people watching, people like me?"
What to look out for - EZRA MILLER IS FREAKIN' PHENOMENAL. I WATCHED THIS MOVIE FOR HIM. HE'S SO GOOD AT PLAYING DISTURBED PEOPLE AND THIS WAS ONE OF HIS GREATEST ACTING PERFORMANCES. Gives me the absolute creeps.
If you liked this movie, the other movie with similar plot points is Elephant, but I HATED that movie. The other movie, however, that I thought of a lot during this movie due to the format and mystery was Horns, which I LOVE!
EDIT: 3/20/21 - Another very similar story about a mother knowing the dark side of her son better than anyone else is Defending Jacob.
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