We Need to Talk About Kevin (2011)
Directed by Lynne Ramsey
Written by Rory Stewart Kinnear, Lynne Ramsey
Starring Tilda Swinton, Ezra Miller, John C. Reilly
Release Date October 21st. 2011
Streaming on Amazon Prime and Tubi
When we chose the movie We Need to Talk About Kevin for our classic on the August 29th edition of the Everyone's a Critic Movie Review Podcast I promise you, we were not intending it as a humorous reference to the current real life troubles of star Ezra Miller. I had honestly forgotten that the troubled star was the title character, Kevin, a sociopath who grows ever more unhinged until he causes an unimaginable tragedy. We Need to Talk About Kevin was chosen because star Tilda Swinton is back in theaters with a brilliant new movie called Three Thousand Years of Longing.
With that problematic aside noted, lets talk about We Need to Talk About Kevin. The inconceivably brilliant writer-director Lynn Ramsey came to the project after reading author Lionel Schriver's unnerving book and after being approached by then producer of the film Tilda Swinton. It was Ramsey who suggested that Swinton should move from the Producer's chair to the center of this swirling vortex of a story about mother dealing with guilt, anguish, depression, and unceasing grief. Ramsey's instincts, as usual, were on point. Few other actors in the world carry the grace and gravitas that Swinton does.
Find my full length review at Criminal.Media, linked here.
