As a film snob, I have a tendency to get excited about a project depending on who the director is. (Okay, and sometimes the writer.) Rarely the actor, though, because, and no offense to them and the billion dollar industry in place to monitor their every breath, they are just one element of a filmmaker's overall game plan. There are a few, though, with such sharp tastes and a seeming disinterest in popularity contests that I'll see anything they do without hesitation. Tilda Swinton (Julia, I Am Love) is one of these actors.
This newest one is We Need To Talk About Kevin, the story of an independent woman's life being torn apart by motherhood. It begins with a fussy baby and ends with a teen committing mass murder in a school. It is being hailed by some as a thoughtful horror film. If it ever hits the mainstream it will be examined as a serious drama. It's both, to be sure, but I'll let you in on a secret: it is also very funny.
How can you not laugh at the absurdity of a renown, world-traveler and author locking horns with an eight year old boy who purposely shits his pants just to annoy his mother? How can you not laugh when a baby just cries and cries and cries so mom pushes the stroller closer to a jackhammer to get some relief? How can you not laugh when a clueless Dad buys this young terror WEAPONS as a gift?
One of the few unbreakable taboos in our culture is the strength of a mother and child's love. Well, some people are just rotten. Do they stop being rotten because they have a mom? Or, for that matter, a son?
There are theories out there that We Need To Talk About Kevin is told from the perspective of an unreliable narrator. (It is all through Swinton's flashbacks.) I say, this is a theory floated by the weak! Why do we refuse to admit that there are assholes in the world and that they are born that way?
Kevin is not quite so experimental, but it makes terrific use of empty spaces in the grotesque suburban McMansion. Ramsay loves montage, as well as floating around in slow moving cars as the least expected song plays on the soundtrack. (When we aren't hearing Buddy Holly or the Beach Boys, its an original score by Johnny Greenwood.)
