We Need to Talk About How Much I Disliked We Need to Talk About Kevin

My taste in movies is fairly broad, but I definitely veer more toward the feel-good end of things, and I try to avoid films with an overabundance of violence. However, sometimes someone else picks the movie, and I’ll wind up watching something I never would have picked on my own. Sometimes I’m glad I took this venture into darker territory, sometimes not. In the case of We Need to Talk About Kevin, the latest such film I viewed, I’m definitely not.

This movie, which was written and directed by Lynne Ramsay, stars Tilda Swinton as Eva Khatchadourian, a cowed, disturbed woman who spends most of the film looking severely traumatized. We’re not quite sure why at first, though a safe guess is that it involves the titular Kevin, her son. The movie is incredibly disorienting, hopping around in time every few minutes, and at first I had a very hard time following it, though I eventually grew accustomed to the different time periods and could usually tell which one we were in by looking at Eva. If not, a glance at Kevin was sufficient, since we see him as an infant, a toddler (Rock Duer), a young child (Jasper Newell) and a teenager (Ezra Miller).

Of course, since Eva, not Kevin, is the central character, there are a number of scenes in which he does not appear, but most directly involve him. Each of the actors portraying him is startlingly skilled at conveying Kevin’s sociopathic tendencies. Even at the age of three or four, this child is frightening, and it’s little wonder that Eva does not relish the time she spends with him, though it is a wonder that she doesn’t aggressively seek psychiatric help for a child with such obvious emotional problems. Then again, she does not have the support of her affable but oblivious husband, Franklin (John C. Reilly), who tunes out any of Eva’s protests that Kevin is an atypical boy, in part because Kevin acts differently around him than he does in her company.

Once I got used to the movie’s nonlinear format, I had a better understanding of how it was building toward one grand traumatic event by showing us ever more unsettling scenes from Kevin’s life, along with a few from before his birth and several that occur after the calamity in question. We don’t know precisely what happened until quite late in the film, but it becomes easier and easier to guess as the scenes progress.

I nearly always find Reilly very likable in his roles, and at first I did here too, but at a certain point, Franklin’s complacency and refusal to take any stock in his wife’s concerns became deeply frustrating. Eva is icy and distant with her son and never bothers to hide the fact that she resents his presence in her life. In fact, she tells him this to his face when he is a toddler. However, in the end, it’s hard to say which parent bears more responsibility for the fact that he just continues to grow more and more cold and calculating, seemingly taking pleasure only in defiance and destruction.

Miller is particularly chilling, reminding me of Sterling Beaumon’s performance as a teen serial killer in Criminal Minds. The title reflects the deep communication rift between Eva and her husband, to say nothing of the total lack of useful interaction between her and Kevin himself, and one wonders whether talking to and about Kevin more effectively could have led to his turning out well-adjusted and sociable. These are the sorts of questions that the sixth Harry Potter book explored about Voldemort, and there’s no easy answer. This is a kid whose life revolves around openly tormenting his mother, deceiving his father and subtly terrorizing his gentle little sister Celia (Ashley Girasimovich). How much of that was preventable?

Both parents here have their issues, but it’s hard to see how any parent could cope very well with the seething malice that Kevin displays from his earliest years, so it’s not clear whether the film is advocating more checked-in parenting or just trying to scare the heebie-jeebies out of anyone who’s ever considered becoming a parent. In the special features, author Lionel Shriver notes that her novel was inspired largely by her examination of her long-held disinterest in motherhood, leading me to lean toward the latter. The friend I watched it with concluded that the message was, “Don’t have kids; you never know what you’re going to end up with.”

If that is indeed the conclusion we are meant to reach, then the film certainly succeeded for me, and I sure wish I could go to sleep without the scarring images from this movie rattling around in my brain. The movie is horrifying and revolting, but I don’t think my strong negative reaction is enough to classify this as a cinematic triumph. It stuck with me, but I certainly didn’t enjoy it, and the only talking about Kevin I want to do now is warning people off it unless they like having their stomachs churned.

Amber Tamblyn and Tilda Swinton Work Through Traumatic Pregnancies in Stephanie Daley

Several years ago, CBS introduced Joan of Arcadia, a quirky and challenging show about a teenager who receives a series of ambiguous divine instructions. It only lasted two seasons, but that was enough to make its star, Amber Tamblyn, an actress for me to watch. Yesterday, my friend Libbie and I watched a movie starring her, along with Tilda Swinton, who played the White Witch in the Narnia movies. It was good to see her again, though I’m not entirely sure what I thought of the film.

We saw it on Lifetime, and the movie, written and directed by Hilary Brougher, was entitled What She Knew, though when I looked it up on IMDb, it was listed as Stephanie Daley, the name of Tamblyn’s character. Stephanie is a teenager standing trial for the death of her baby. Swinton plays Lydie, a psychologist who meets with her periodically in an effort to determine whether she realized she was pregnant and whether she willfully killed her own child. The movie alternates among conversations between these two, flashbacks to the preceding year before Stephanie got pregnant and gave birth and current-day scenes involving either Lydie or Stephanie.

Lydie is pregnant, and about a year earlier, she lost a baby about 20 weeks into pregnancy. As a result, Stephanie’s story has deep resonance for her, and she finds it hard to let go of the case when she’s at home. It’s affecting her marriage, which is already undergoing difficulties. Swinton does a good job of depicting her attempt to juggle personal turmoil with professional distance. But Tamblyn’s the one who really drew me in.

The current day finds her sullen and taciturn, though she gradually opens up to Lydie, and their blossoming relationship reminded me a bit of the one at the heart of The Sixth Sense. In the flashbacks, she starts off seeming like a pretty happy, well-adjusted teen. She seems much younger and more innocent, and we watch her become more and more withdrawn as her pregnancy progresses. It’s a pretty compelling performance.

The men don’t come off so well in this movie. It’s implied that Lydie’s husband is having an affair, though we never get absolute confirmation of that. We see only the beginning and the aftermath of Stephanie’s lone sexual encounter; while it seems to have been somewhat consensual, the boy comes across as taking advantage of her naivety, especially since he drops out of her life after that. There’s also an undeveloped subplot involving an old friend of Stephanie’s who seems to have been molested by a teacher.

Though this was in theaters, it seemed very much in keeping with Lifetime and was all about two women trying to work their way through similar experiences that only another woman could fully appreciate. There’s a lot of symbolism in the movie, particularly with deer and cats, but viewers are left to put the pieces of the puzzle together. The ending feels pretty ambiguous and abrupt, and some scenes don’t quite seem to fit in. The Tamblyn-Swinton scenes serve as the movie’s foundation, and there’s an energy to the film in those moments that it lacks in other scenes. In the end, those two performances impressed me, but the film itself failed to grip me very much. Worth a watch, but hardly the best project either actress has taken on.

You'll Never Look at a Wardrobe the Same Way Again...

The world could use a little bit more Magic. That’s what I think, and that’s what C. S. Lewis and J. R. R. Tolkien thought when they wrote their respective masterpieces. For three years in a row, I got to see a sweeping cinematic interpretation of Tolkien’s epic, which I treasure more than any other. Last year, a dry spell. No lifelong friends, breathed into life anew from the deepest reaches of my childhood, to sustain me. A cold year indeed. But after a long winter, Middle-earth’s companion has come to join its majestic sibling, and Christmas has come at last. If the rest of the audiences were as enchanted as I was, The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe is only the first in a long and lustrous series, seven to match the number in the exploits of the boy wizard whose name need not be mentioned - a sacred number, and perhaps I should clarify that I do not mean Lewis is the good to Rowling’s evil, but rather a fellow spinner of tales so absorbing and spiritually stimulating they both invite and defy adaptation. But I have known Lewis much longer, and the glory of his natural world calls to me with more resonance than the Gothic surroundings in which young Mr. Potter finds himself. This is a film that is an event, a milestone and a beckoning. Embrace the child within that longs to crack open that wardrobe door and explore the world beyond - a world free of all the distractions and impurities of our own. Embrace the land of Narnia.

It is always difficult to adapt a book into a movie; the more beloved the source, the more likely you are to offend with your departures, though there is likely to be a large group of people who will see the film even if they are determined to hate it. The Chronicles of Narnia have a passionate following, as director Andrew Adamson and screenplay writer Ann Peacock clearly knew. How to translate the books without killing the magic? I believe they succeeded. There is a magnificence in this film I’ve not yet encountered in the Harry Potter adaptations. Instead, it begins to approach Lord of the Rings – especially in terms of the cinematography. Goodness gracious, but New Zealand has become quite the idyllic locale. Housing Middle-earth and Narnia is an impressive feat. I only hope these films don’t draw so many people to the islands that the pristine beauty for which they are lauded is diminished. Narnia is just gorgeous, and the film is awfully realistic-looking considering the fact that it’s populated mostly with characters who are at least partially computer generated. There’s nothing cartoonish about these beasts, and I think even Lewis would approve and agree that technology has finally caught up to his vision – an irony with both Tolkien and Lewis, who both treasured nature so deeply and were wary of industrialization.

Speaking of Tolkien, as I must when I mention Lewis, I thought I caught at least a couple nods to the good professor. The shot of the children and beavers huddling under a rocky overpass as they flee the White Witch is remarkably similar to the moment early in Fellowship in which the four young hobbits hide from their Nazgul pursuer. Later, the girls send an important message through the trees, and I can't help but think of the Beacons of Gondor. Finally, when the climactic battle is in full swing, a troop of eagles swoops down to provide unexpected aid. Could that be a small tribute to Lewis’ dear friend and fellow storyteller? But I’m getting ahead of myself. And so: the story. Remarkably, there seems to be very little missing, though sadly one of those things is the kindly giant Rumblebuffin, who is only alluded to with a brief glimpse of his statue in the Witch’s courtyard. However, a great deal has been added, and though I counted each departure with a bit of an inner grumble, in the end I found that most of the changes did not bother me. I have read that the director wanted to recapture the excitement he felt when he first encountered the books as a child, masking the slight disillusionment he experienced when he read it as an adult. The magic, it seemed, had gone. I still see the enchantment in Narnia’s pages, but then I never really have grown up. Adamson coaxes those who have become burdened with the trappings of adulthood to relinquish them for two and a half hours and believe again.

The story involves four children: Lucy (Georgie Henley), Edmund (Skandar Keynes), Susan (Anna Popplewell) and Peter Pevensie (William Mosely). In the film, we see their unnerving exodus from a war-torn English city into the relative safety of the countryside, where they take up residence with a reticent, eccentric professor (Jim Broadbent) and a cranky housekeeper (Elizabeth Hawthorne) in an enormous mansion in which most of the doors are kept locked. One, however, is enticingly open, and Lucy wanders into it during a game of hide and seek and there finds an object of awesome beauty: a wardrobe, ornately carved, drawing her in like a magnet (though she does, of course, remember to leave its door ajar for easy exit). When she stops brushing past fur coats and starts to get pricked by pine needles, it’s clear she’s stepped into a very strange wardrobe indeed, but she has no fear as she embarks upon this strange journey without her siblings into a world she did not know existed. Through this first trip, we see her sense of awe and wonder, her gentleness and emotional openness. For she quickly forges a delightful bond with a jittery but earnest faun named Mr. Tumnus (James McAvoy), a connection that will pave the way for all the adventures that follow.

In Narnia, we soon become accustomed to the sight of talking animals and creatures with features both human and bestial. The pristine snowfall comes to seem less enchanting than sinister, though as its grip weakens, it poses little threat – aside from in a rip-roaring river scene entirely absent in the book that nonetheless is quite exciting to watch. There are allies and enemies, and everyone seems to fall into one camp or another – for Aslan (Liam Neeson), the magnificent Lion who is the rightful king of Narnia, or Jadis (Tilda Swinton), an impostor who fancies herself the Queen and is responsible for the century of winter that has reigned in this magical land. Though this icy monarch refuses to admit it, she fears Aslan and the prophecy involving his return – a prophecy involving four humans. She will do anything to stop them from fulfilling their long foretold destinies, and it seems her job is made much simpler when she manages to woo a petulant Edmund, who encounters her alone before the four children finally make it through to Narnia together, to her side. While the fate of the land is ultimately in Aslan’s paws, the children have a great hand in it; they must battle fierce foes and their own interpersonal disputes before they can hope to save Edmund and, indeed, all of Narnia.

The cast is excellent, with Swinton most striking as the seductive witch. She is pale, beady-eyed and elegant – and as terrifying as Cruella De Vil, who seems cut from the same mold. Neeson gives kingly voice to the beautifully animated Lion, conveying both his warmth and his wrath. McAvoy is incredibly winning as Tumnus, and his relationship with Lucy is one of the most heartwarming aspects of the film. While all the supporting characters are excellent, particular attention must be paid to Ginarrbrik (Kiran Shah), Jadis’ the much-abused right-hand dwarf, and the Beavers (Ray Winstone and Dawn French), who are just as powerful a tribute to decent working-class folks as the Weasleys are in the Harry Potter books. The two bicker frequently, but always in love, and they clearly are two of Aslan’s most faithful followers. But it really is the children at the center of this story, and these four unknowns are marvelous, especially Henley, which makes me particularly happy. Lucy is just as curious and compassionate and connected to this strange new world as I would wish her to be, and Henley has just the right expressive qualities to accentuate the beauty of this character. Lucy is my favorite, and I applaud them for getting her right. Keynes, too, puts in a powerful performance as the outcast of the group. Though Lucy is always perfectly decent to him, Susan and Peter seem to have little affection but plenty of criticism for him, and it's easy to see why he would seek appreciation elsewhere. Peter is pretty much right but, like Aragorn in LotR, is far too reluctant to embrace his kingly destiny. He lacks some of the nobility he possessed in the book, and he’s too argumentative – as is Susan, though she always did strike me as a bit too bossy. In all honesty her overly grown-upness (well-intentioned as it often is) always rather got on my nerves, though Narnia eventually draws out her inherent sweetness. The three eldest children spend a great deal of time cross with one another, and I think they perhaps over-emphasized this, but it perhaps increases its resemblance to reality. In the end, no matter what their differences, the four children are family and they care deeply about each other, and that love can overcome many obstacles.

As I said, a great deal was added to this film in terms of exciting sequences, and there is much more emphasis on the battle with the White Witch than there was in the book, where it occupied a mere few paragraphs. As cinematic battles go, it’s pretty impressive-looking, and I understand the director’s choice in focusing on that, but I still wish we could have spent a bit more time in the courtyard with Aslan summoning the rest of the army. As in LotR, the best scenes are the personal ones, little moments in which the children come to appreciate one another more fully or are able to connect with their true monarch on a very intimate level. As long as these don’t get lost in the shuffle of special effects that are sure to be used liberally in the six sequels, I see no reason why all seven films can’t be equally enchanting. I for one can hardly wait for Prince Caspian. Until then, all I can say is well done and Godspeed. Narnia is just as magical as ever.