Tags
Ezra Miller, John C Reilly, Lionel Shriver, Lynne Ramsay, Seamus McGarvey, Talk About Kevin, Tilda Swinton, We Need to Talk About Kevin
Hailed by critics and ignored by mainstream audiences, independent cinema misses the point with the same frequency as any blockbuster. It depends, obviously, on the creative mind behind it. When it is honest, it soars. When it is untruthful, it stinks. The later is the case with the lauded We Need to Talk About Kevin, an exploration on the grief of a mother whose son turned out to be an homicidal psychopath, responsible for the carnage of a slew of teenager in his high-school. Unfortunately, Lynn Ramsay, the director, is not able to sidestep the obvious traps of such a story and turns the boy into a demoniacal figure, a personification of evil with no human attributes, also aided by horrific performances by the title character in his various The Omen-esque incarnations. Even though visually it is indeed an engaging picture – with superb and inventive cinematography by Seamus McGarvey – it fails to resonate as it should. What manages to get through is purely due to a monstrous and disconcerting performance by the ever astonishing and shapeshifting Tilda Swinton, in another exercise of dramatic transfiguration. But even though her pain and anguish are palpable, everything else feels insincere and simplistic in a very dangerous way.
2 stars
