'But what's the point?'
'There is no point, that's the point'
We need to talk about Kevin 8.1
The parent-child bond is supposedly a most natural thing, but that doesn't mean it comes easy, or atall. This horror influenced film shows how it can go so wrong.
The opening credits play over the sound of sprinklers and we see the door to the garden that will be so pivotal later on. We see many people covered in tomatoes (which is a famous festival in Spain I think), which could easily be blood from afar. In fact all the way through there is lots of the colour red used, some subtle, some really not. Much of it could represent bloodshed foreshadowing, this same trick is used in a great classic horror film Dont Look Now.
Tilda Swinton, as mum, is clearly stressed, she's taking lots of pills, her house is getting vandalised, certain people she comes across are clearly not fans. We know within 5 mins that this is her story, we see what appear to be flashbacks to a much happier time which are shot with a much warmer filter and sometimes in slo-mo to add some romance.
The structure is really interesting and well done, scenes are jumping around time frame wise so we slowly peice together the events. They sometimes are shown in different lighting, camera framing, angles or speeds to seem disorientating, this i think is to try and show what her frazzled mind must be like, she is having or had a breakdown. We can tell we are seeing things from before and after an event. Some films would simply build up to the event for the maximum shock ending, others would show you the event and analyse the journey in hindsight, for me, this manages to do a bit of both for a different experience and builds intrigue.
Even with all the cuts and overlaps etc it is never hard to follow. The very creative editing helps the two timelines merge together, alot of the scenes are cleverly strung together by sharing sounds present in both. The technical aspects are a huge strength of the film, the filmmaking is so full of effects it's very easy to miss lots of the technical quality, which I'm sure i did. You could maybe even argue that it tries to do slightly too much but I still think it's all to show her mental state at different stages of her story.
The horrifying overall message for me is how easily it all happens. She doesn't really seem to do anything wrong. She is uncomfortable at pregnancy sessions, and from there things get worse and worse. Everything Kevin does is borne out of hatred for her, and making her life as miserable as possible. It isn't as simple as just being as shitty as possible to her, he gets very creative in playing with her emotions, for instance he doesn't grass her up about his arm, this is to compound her guilt.. he's trying to break her. Significantly, as a few of the boys have said, the film never tries to explain why he is the way that he is. It is touched on in the final scenes but still I think this might be the right decision because this is the mum's story, not his, and if she doesn't know then neither should we. Plus in the real situation, you would have no idea, how can you understand the mind of a psychopath unless they want you to?
Was he born a psycho/evil.. Maybe, but i don't think it's that simple. There have been many renditions of evil children in horror cinema, most notably maybe Damien from The Omen, also in Rosemary's Baby or The Exorcist, and a few more modern ones. But this is an entirely different thing. Overall, from the outside he has a normal life. He only targets his mum and can be pretty amiable to everybody else so there is clearly a level of planning and control. He makes sure that noone else (dad namely) can see this happening, so that she looks like the crazy one. It is significant that we don't ever really see him without her around. He goes to ridiculous lengths and gets pretty creative, the hamster in the sink may be a sly tribute to the famous bunny boiler scene (which is exactly as it sounds) from Fatal Attraction.
I think even his final acts at school and home are to make sure she can't have a normal life and won't ever get over it, the affects will stick with her forever, which we see when other people in the community blame her for his actions. He even leaves the family in the garden for her to find, the best and worst moment of the film, which was briefly shown at the very start. I think it is significant that we see him taking a bow in the school afterwards, as all of this has on some level been a performance, just for her.
It's a great performance from Ezra Miller as the teenage Kevin, and Tilda Swinton. She often seems confused and frightened, we really feel for her and really hate him, but after all is done, he still wins.
This is a film that could be analysed for hours, but to a certain extent I think it's best to just let it take you. Its just as much a sensory experience as a case study into the psychology. Once you know how things end, parts of the film take on different significance. I hadn't seen it for years and had forgotten how much of the main event is shown before the reveal, making it somewhat predictable.. although the ending isn't a huge shock, it is still shocking.
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