WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT KEVIN

Every year at the end of August, the Tomatina Festival is celebrated in Bunol, Valencia (Spain); approximately 15 tons of tomatoes are hurled, squashed, plummeted on thousands of willing participants, joyously sacrificing their inhibitions on the altar of gooey, glorious fun. This vibrantly red scene in “We need to Talk About Kevin” serves as the metaphor for the gruesome, horrific, tale of what contemporary society has had to synthesize; children driven to mass murder; making sense of the nonsensical.

Tilda Swinton is “Eva Khatchadourian” an accomplished adventure writer, deliciously in love with her husband “Franklin” (John C. Reilly, shines), the mother of “Kevin”; the “mother” of the quintessential “bad seed”. Ms. Swinton’s performance is stoic, comatose; her chiseled, refined, plainly beautiful facade, keeps her intense suffering camouflaged and becomes robotic, zombie- like. 

The three “Kevin’s” (Rock Duer, Jasper Newell, Ezra Miller) give excellent portrayals as the monster in the making and the final product.

There were too many frustrating, unaddressed questions: Franklin’s blindness in recognizing Kevin’s problems; lack of the therapeutic process, especially after a second child escalates Kevin’s demonic traits; Eva’s refusal to move from a place she always despised. Possibly, her penance for giving birth to the devil incarnate. 

Because of the times we have been forced to consider and wrongfully judge the parents of nefarious, tainted children; could they have foreseen, envisioned the heinous mission their progeny visited upon the innocent?  No, because it was not in their genetic composition; many of these children are prodigious in masking their intentions. Philosophers Plato, Aristotle, John Locke believed that most individuals are inherently good; that goodness outweighs evil. How can decent people spawn a Beelzebub?

Do “We Need To Talk About Kevin”? Not really.

TWO & 1/2 STARS!!

For Now……….Peneflix