We Need To Talk About Kevin

[Margo]

I was really looking forward to an adaptation of the novel, and I finally saw We Need to Talk about Kevin last night. I can't help but feel this book is very hard to make into a film because of the sheer amount of information about the characters there is, much of which didn't make it into the movie.

Spoilers ahead. If you haven't seen the movie yet, then go read the book first.

I'd rate this adaptation a solid B. I liked the acting, but

• 1. Wish they cast someone other than John C. Reilly as Franklin to redeem his character in some small way. I'm shallow like that, but he should have been at least attractive, given that he's stupid, to not make you wonder why Eva was with him in the first place.
  
• 2. Got more of the plot of the book on screen rather than focusing on Eva's life after the school massacre.
  

Has anyone else seen this? Thoughts?

[Deleted]

I didn't read the book until after the film was made, so I was already picturing John C. Reilly in the role. I thought he did rather well.

I think the movie did a good job at capturing the essence of the book. Tilda Swinton and all the boys who played Kevin were perfectly cast, it was kind of eerie actually. And both of the houses are exactly how I pictured them, particularly the second one. I do wish they had tried to get into Eva's internal monologue a little better, we never really know what her thoughts are. In the book it's made explicit that she didn't move away from the town or fight the result of the lawsuit leveled against her becaise of a mixture of pride and a belief that she deserves the punishment on some level. I also wish they'd included some of the bits with her mother and brother, and actually gone into more detail about her business. In the movie it's not really clear exactly what her job was. And I wish they'd had more of the documentary Kevin appeared on. Mainly how he defended Eva and it showed he had a picture of her in his cell. There was no sense of how Kevin actually did care for Eva on some level like there is in the book. I also think the use of the color red in every freaking scene was a bit heavy-handed.

Oh, and Tilda was totally robbed at awards season. She was amazing.

[satellite]

I really want to see this, but it's only playing at the farthest away of the art house theaters in my area. Guess I'll wait for the DVD.

[comfortablynumb]

I had a hard time with the book, so I don't know if I want to mess with the movie or not.

[WitchyPoo]

I really loved this. It stayed with me for a long time. I think it's one of Tilda's best performances. The kid who played the teenage version of Keving was fantastic. Chilling, very chilling. I haven't read the book but definitely want to now.

[Deleted]

I saw this tonight and really liked it. It started out with a pretentious artsy indie film feel (which I'll admit, is a genre I tend to like. It doesn't even have to be a particularly GOOD pretentious artsy film. haha). Then it morphed into a horror film at the very end. I guess I'm naive because I didn't expect Kevin to kill the father and little sister So that shocked and upset me and actually made me angry on Eva's behalf. Why the fuck were all these people shitting on this woman that had lost so much? Tilda Swinton's suffering made me think of a Lars von Trier heroine. That fits with what roisin54 said about Eva feeling like she deserved the punishment on some level due to her guilt. . I really want to read the book now. Especially after reading here that Kevin defended Eva and had some feeling for her in the book. That was completely missing from the film.

[Deleted]

Apr 14, 2012 0:40:10 GMT -4 @infgirl said:

I guess I'm naive because I didn't expect Kevin to kill the father and little sister So that shocked and upset me and actually made me angry on Eva's behalf. Why the fuck were all these people shitting on this woman that had lost so much?

I think because Kevin was still technically a child, and therefore they felt that the parent must be to blame for how he turned out. I've noticed this happening whenever a teenager does something like this in real life, there's a subset of people who believe that the parents must've screwed up in some way so it's really their fault. It happens every time. After Columbine I actually got into an argument with a classmate about this, she didn't think that Eric and Dylan's parents deserved any sympathy at all. My thinking was not only had they lost their children too, but they had to live with the knowledge that they'd done something so horrible. I mean unless the parents of these kids are obvious psychos or whatever I think they deserve sympathy when things like this happen. Oy, sorry for the ramble. I guess I have strong feelings on this subject still.

[butterfly]

I just watched this on the weekend.... And I really shouldn't have... I am due to give birth in 10 days and I non feel the need to constantly reassure my belly, "We will bond! You will not grow up to be a psychopath!"

It was a great film though, so very eerie!

[mmmkrimpets]

I did not read the book first, but I saw the movie. Tilda Swinton blew me away. She kept it going for me. John C. Reilly did a good job in that I wanted to shake reality in him. Kevin there was definitely something "off" about him, but I got a more super brat vibe from him when he was child, but as a teen the psycho vibe kicked in. The read a little of the book after I saw the movie and the what I did read was far superior. There were parts that I thought were a bit slow. Had I not seen just seen Beautiful Boy which made you feel like you were right there with the parents rather than watching a film I probably would not have not thought WNTTAK dragged during some parts.

[Deleted]

It started out with a pretentious artsy indie film feel (which I'll admit, is a genre I tend to like. It doesn't even have to be a particularly GOOD pretentious artsy film. haha). Then it morphed into a horror film at the very end.

I had to FF when the first scene dragged on too long. It's like blood. We get it!!!! This movie seemed like it was edited wrong or something. There were several scenes that didn't make sense (especially the ones regarding what happened to the daughter's eye). It was a little too ambiguous and try-hard artsy for my taste. For this type of story Beautiful Boy was far superior IMO. Despite the similar story, BB was like the exact opposite of this one in that it felt so real and true to life. It had a more horrific feel to it because the kid wasn't portrayed as a little monster and the parents weren't as blatantly irresponsible and awful.

I found an article about the possibility that children can be born psychopaths and I think this.....

Since psychopathy is highly heritable, Lynam says, a child who is cold or callous is more likely to have a parent who is the same way. And because parents don’t necessarily bond to children who behave cruelly, those children tend to get punished more and nurtured less, creating what he calls “a self-fulfilling prophecy.”

.....is what they were trying to portray with Kevin and his mother. It's very interesting, but I don't think the movie did a good job of getting this across. Instead Kevin was like a Bad Seed, his mother saw right through his manipulations and they shared a mutual hatred because of this shared knowledge, while the dad was willingly clueless. WNTTAK seemed more like a Lifetime movie than an indie artsy movie to me.