We Need to Talk About Kevin (2011)

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Overview

We Need To Talk About Kevin is a 2011 British-American film that was adapted from the novel of the same name by Lionel Shriver. The production of the film lasted from 2005 all the way through 2010 when filming finally took place. The film stars Ava played by Tilda Swinton who has had difficulty coexisting with her tormenting son Kevin played by Ezra Miller since the day of his birth.

Plot Summary

The film opens with a depressed and distraught Eva who wakes up in her tiny run-down home to find that someone has splashed red paint all over the windshield of her car and her front porch. She brushes it off as if it's common and hurries off to work to her dead-end job as a receptionist for a travel agency. She spends her day hiding from familiar faces and basically anyone that would recognize her from her and her son's past.

Ava has various flashbacks to different points in her life that dictates where she is now. Since the day of his birth, Kevin has never gotten along with his mother. As a baby he would scream in her arms until she put him down or handed him off to his father and as a toddler things progressed. He refused to talk or even play simple games like 'roll the ball' with her. He would just stare at her in anger and when he would speak the only thing he would tell her is "No". It was at this point that Ava knew something was wrong with her son. She sought out to help him, but all that did was raise questions about her mothering skills. She would get caught fighting back with Kevin and be looked at by her husband as an unfit mother.

As a young child Kevin would refuse to be toilet trained, knowing that his mother would have to clean up after his mess. He would destroy anything remotely valuable to her and then act 'normal' when his father was present to make her look like a liar. It was at this point that Ava finally snapped when Kevin defecated on himself on purpose in front of her, so she shoved him forcefully breaking his arm in the process. Instead of telling on her, Kevin used this to his advantage. He lied to his father and held the event over Ava's head, threatening to reveal the truth if she did not do everything he had said.

As a teen Kevin is much smarter and sinister. In front of his father, he continues to act like an angel, but when it comes to his mother he is just as incompatible as before if not more. He kills his little sister's pet hamster and even causes her to go blind in one eye, all while making it seem like his mother is to blame. After these events plague Ava, she seeks comfort in her husband by telling him the whole truth about Kevin. All this does is upset him and convince him that she is the one to blame for all their problems as a family.

One fateful day while Ava is at work as a school teacher she is notified by one of her students that an incident had occurred at Kevin's High School. She repeatedly calls her husband as she rushes to his school, but he doesn't answer. When she arrives the first the she sees is students crying and police cars and ambulances. She rushes to the front of the crowd to see Kevin being dragged away in hand cuffs, followed by multiple body bags with arrows sticking out of the corpses that reside inside following him short after. She immediately returns to her car and hurries home where she finds the bodies of her daughter and her husband with arrows from Kevin's bow stuck in them. The film ends three years later with Ava visiting her son one final time in prison before he his transferred to an adult facility after his 18th birthday. In hopelessness and desperation she breaks down and asks her son why he did what he did. He reassures her that he thought he used to know, but is currently not sure anymore. This gives her hope for her son even after everything he has done to her and hugs him one final time before he is dragged away in cuffs.