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In a time when calls for mental health awareness are getting louder by the day, movies like Lynn Ramsey’s 2011 psychological thriller, We Need to Talk About Kevin, serve as an entertaining yet sobering reminder of what can happen when that awareness is either not present or present but not acted upon. Yet what separates Kevin from so many others is its attempt to bridge the gap between those on both sides of the argument by presenting the story from a perspective that almost anyone can relate to: the eye of a parent.
Eva Khatchadourian, played brilliantly by Tilda Swinton, is a writer whose life slowly begins to unravel after she and her husband, Franklin (John C. Reilly), have their first child, Kevin. Issues with Kevin arise almost immediately, and despite Eva’s efforts to connect, Kevin’s behaviors continue to escalate. As Kevin gets older, he begins to hide these behaviors from everyone except Eva, initiating a game between them that seems to constantly leave Eva off balance before eventually ending in tragedy.
Kevin is the type of film that will make you either not want to have children or look at the children you already have a little sideways for a couple of days. This is the situation that every parent buries in the back of their mind and prays that they never have to deal with—and having to watch Eva not only deal with it but trudge through the aftermath is nothing short of excruciating. Thankfully, Lynn Ramsey’s masterful storytelling blends the aftermath and past together into an almost dreamlike sequence, allowing for quick contrasts and comparisons between the two, which enhances the narrative while providing some much-needed breaks for your nerves.
Ramsey also manages to sustain tension without resorting to gore by mixing the order of past events, forcing viewers to stew uncomfortably about the potential causes of various happenstances. And when those causes are revealed, they may not offer the best payoff, but the journey will no doubt stick with you much longer than any gory climax ever could.
Of course, these journeys and payoffs wouldn’t have had the same impact without a magnificent cast portraying every physical and emotional nuance of their situations—a credit both to the cast (both individually and collectively) and to Ramsey, particularly for coaxing such great performances from the three young actors playing Kevin at different ages.
Kevin is not without flaws, however, and unfortunately many of them are in the form of common sense (or, in this case, a serious lack of it). Denial can be ugly, and it’s easy to watch from the outside and say how much better you would have handled a situation, but some of the things that Eva and Franklin do are almost teenagers in a horror movie dumb, leaving viewers to question the realism of the characters—and, by extension, the believability of the film itself. Yet as hard as it is to explain and/or justify their actions, it’s still a little too difficult to dismiss them completely, since you never really know how you would cope in the same situation. And Kevin manages to feel legitimate and believable throughout as a result (albeit just barely).
Broaching a subject like mental health, especially that of a child, is no easy task—especially in movie form, since this isn’t exactly the type of subject that tons of people will rush out to see. Yet with its strong cast and artistic directorial approach, Kevin sends its message loud and clear without being too over the top or too understated—enough to merit at least one viewing. Granted, many probably won’t want to watch it more than that, but one viewing will still be more than enough to stay in your mind for a while—and it might even spark a conversation or two.
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