Eagerly anticipating this week ... (5-24)

Eagerly anticipating this week ... (5-24)
Alex Garland's Civil War (2024)

7/14/2015

We Need to Talk About Kevin (2011) - Ramsay's troubling, brilliant masterpiece

 ♥





1 Time Film Excess Award Winner:

Best Screenplay: Rory Stewart Kinnear, Lynne Ramsay

9 Time Film Excess Nominee:


Best Film (lost to The Descendants)
Best Screenplay: Rory Stewart Kinnear, Lynne Ramsay (won)
Best Director: Lynne Ramsay (lost to Agnieszka Holland for In Darkness)
Best Actress: Tilda Swinton (lost to Bérénice Bejo for The Artist)
Best Supporting Actor: Ezra Miller (lost to Michael Shannon for Boardwalk Empire S2)
Best Non-adult Actor: Jasper Newell (lost to Amara Miller for The Descendants)
Best Cinematography: Seamus McGarvey (lost to Phedon Papamichael for The Descendants)
Best Sound (lost to Drive
Best Score: Jonny Greenwood (lost to Cliff Martinez for Drive)


+ 3rd Best Movie of the Year
+ Best Shooting Star Actor of the Year (Ezra Miller)
+ Most Upsetting Movie of the Year

Tilda Swinton looks shell-shocked; Ezra Miller looks antagonistic. It's the poster for Lynne Ramsay's We Need to Talk About Kevin

Right from his infancy, Kevin doesn't fit in with his mother. The father completely denies the boy's abnormal actions as he grows up, and the mother ends up with a madly asocial and dangerous young man on her hands. 

Visually, Kevin is particularly well made and impressive, with stunning cinematography by Seamus McGarvey (Godzilla (2014)), just as its sound side proceeds in the most beautiful way. The music is by Jonny Greenwood (There Will Be Blood (2007)) of Radiohead.
The story is told in a thrillingly subjective fashion from the mother's point of view. Without losing us along the way, the film commands us all the way into the terrible situation that Tilda Swinton's (Caravaggio (1986)) character finds herself in. We get there also due to formidable performances from Swinton and young Jasper Newell (Meet the Small Potatoes (2013)) and Ezra Miller (The Perks of Being a Wallflower (2012)) as Kevin at different ages.
We Need to Talk About Kevin is written by Rory Stewart Kinnear (Swimmer (2012), short, music supervisor) and Scottish writer-director Lynne Ramsay (Ratcatcher (1999)), based on the same-titled 2003 novel by Lionel Shriver (Double Fault (1997)). The film is a true rock in the shoe; it bothers you, and you'll leave it full of questions and thoughts that you'll need to share and discuss with others. It is a masterful film that gives no answers on its own and conveys no message; instead it presents a range of clearly defined, irrefutable problems and circumstances surrounding motherhood, identity creation and child-raising gone terribly wrong.

Related posts:

2011 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED III]
2011 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED II]
2011 in films - according to Film Excess 






Watch the incredible, Buddy Holly-infused trailer for the film here

Cost: 7 mil. $
Box office: 9.2 mil. $
= Big flop
[The film was developed since 2005, and funding it was an uphill process that finally succeeded. The film opened successfully in competition at Cannes and was successful in the UK, where it made 2.2 mil. £. It only made disappointing 1.7 mil. $ in the US (18 % of the total gross), despite heaps of critical praise, among which Roger Ebert awarded it 4 out of 4 stars, and scores of nominations and awards, including a Best Actress, Drama Globe nomination for Swinton.]

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