Canadutch
Ages ago I read the book We Need to Talk About Kevin and this is what I had to say about it:
This book sucked hardcore for the first few chapters and I had to force myself through it. It was long winded and the author appears to go out of her way to use run-on sentences and difficult language. I hate giving up on a book though, and I tend to try to push through them in case there is something better to be found.
I’m glad I did with this one, because it got very very good. Once I got used to the writing style and the content got more interesting, it turned out to be an extremely thought provoking novel which makes you question everything you’ve ever heard or thought about being a parent and having children. It makes you wonder especially about the nature vs nurture topic, which I’m still not sure about myself.
It’s almost hard to believe it’s fiction, to be honest. It makes me wonder if these are the things the mothers of the kids from Columbine and other school shootings thought and experienced.
The book is written through a series of letters from Eva, to her seemingly estranged husband, about their son Kevin. Eva’s relationship with Kevin was strained from birth and as he grew older she was convinced that there was something wrong with him, always suspecting there was an evil side to him. His behavior with her was drastically different than with her husband, who appears to be blissfully unaware of this side of him, partially because Kevin puts on a much happier face with him but also because he refuses to accept that his family is anything other than the norm. This leads to Eva feeling quite alone in her efforts to win Kevin’s affection and deal with his abusive and sometimes cruel behavior.
I found it to be quite a difficult read for a number of reasons, both because of how the book was written but also the content. As someone who has been trying to have children for a very long time, and had far too much time to question if we want to have one and why, this was an absolutely frightening read. The thought of having a child and not having a connection with him / her and having them react to me in the way Kevin reacts to his mother (or doesn’t react) scared me. It also made me worry about the decisions I would make as a mother, how they would affect any future child and what the hell I’d ever do if I had a child like this.
When I said the book was thought provoking, that was putting it mildly. It’s a book that you read and then it sticks with you… I have found myself mulling it over in my head while in bed, on the tram, while shopping and a lot of other times. I’ve gone back and forth in my head about the nature vs nuture topic and how it applies in this movie. Granted, this is a work of fiction and without speaking to the parents of kids who have done such horrible things, there’s no way to know if this is what it’s really like. From what I gather, most parents are taken quite by surprise when their child does something so horrific, which wasn’t really the case with Eva in the book.
I’ve questioned again and again whether Kevin was born that way or if there was something in the way Eva acted towards him and if her depression and frustration with a difficult, constantly crying baby caused him to somehow detach from her, thus breaking the mother / child relationship and starting off what turned out to be quite evil behavior.
What has brought this all back up recently was seeing the movie. It’s been years since I read the book, which is usually a good thing when it comes time to watch a movie that is based on one. Otherwise I spend the entire time picking the movie apart and complaining about what is and isn’t represented from the book. I was able to just watch this and enjoy it without remembering or recognizing what was missing, or what was added.
[youtube id=”ozm-hlPNGX4″ width=”600″ height=”350″]My experience when watching the movie was quite the same as when I read the book. There were parts that were boring but it was intriguing at the same time. It probably helped that I had already read the book and knew what the outcome would be. I did feel a heightened sense of anticipation and dread through the movie, which I know was the desired affect.
The children in the film were brilliant and more than once I wondered how they got a child that was so young to give such looks and portray such emotion. All three of the boys that played Kevin did a remarkable job in creating a massive unease within me, the kind of feeling that makes me understand why some species eat their young.
The entire cast was chosen perfectly really. I don’t think anyone could play the tortured, anguished Eva the way Tilda Swinton did. She WAS Eva in this film, and what I liked most was that she managed to create that perfect balance that we found in the book, where you wanted to empathize and sympathize with her but at the same time there was something about her that made you uneasy as well. I’m not sure a lot of actresses could bring that out in the character the way she did. It takes a lot of acting skill to make you pity a character at the same time as you sort of hate her.
Her husband (Franklin), played by John C. Reilly, was also done very well. His stubborn desire to have the perfect little nuclear family causes him to ignore and brush off all of Eva’s attempts to get him to understand what she is going through. Reilly is the perfect person to play a sort of happy go lucky, father who is happy to ignore what is going on around him.
Both the book and the movie bring about so many questions. What causes Kevin to be the way he is? Is it Eva’s inability to deal with him as a difficult baby that severed the bond between mother and son? Was there ever one there to begin with? Is Kevin just inherently evil or was that something that was somehow created by his environment?
** Spoilers Ahead **
Another big question I have is in regards to how he feels about his parents. Through the book and the movie I had the impression that he liked his father more than his mother, that there was more respect for him. If that were true, why did he kill Franklin and not Eva? If all of his anger and hatred appeared to be aimed towards his mother, why did he not kill her? Was it because he wanted her to live miserable and alone, feeling responsible for all the death and destruction Kevin left in his path?
I wonder if it wasn’t quite the opposite. If in some strange way Kevin didn’t have more respect for his mother because she saw through him, and she constantly challenged him. Did he not have less respect for his father and almost see him as an idiot who could be easily fooled by putting on a smile and pretending to be an adoring son? Did he kill the father and sister because he had no use for them?
So many questions! That is what makes a good book for me, something that leaves me thinking afterwards. There are things I didn’t like about the book, and the movie, but none of it took away from the story and the endless questions that it left me with. Even though I will probably never read it again, or watch the movie, I still think this is an incredible story.
If you like this kind of movie, you would definitely like Confession, a japanese movie. It really is a bit boring at first but you will want to watch to the end as it will really intrigue you.
Director Lynne Ramsay’s first narrative feature in nine years is uncomfortably tense but worth savoring, particularly because of Tilda Swinton’s devastating lead performance. It’s dark, grim, and very disturbing, however, I could not take my eyes off of it. Great review. Check out mine when you get the chance.
As a new mom (my son is 5 and a half months) I admit, this does pop into my head from time to time. It’s not that I ever felt disconnected from my baby, but I had him via unplanned c-section after I was induced because he was 9 days late. My incision became severely infected and I was in a lot of pain and had to receive daily treatment of the wound for over a month and so, if I’m honest with myself, I was a tad resentful of my baby for the first 2 months. He (unintentionally of course) caused me a good deal of pain and because my movement was restricted there were a lot of people caring for him because I couldn’t always do it, so I think I felt slightly distanced from him at first.
Now things are much better. He’s a very social, friendly, happy baby who is hitting most of his developmental benchmarks on the early side, so in general I’m quite happy, but there is that lurking fear sometimes. That tiny little piece at the back of my mind that thinks “what if?” What if he grows up to be cruel or harmful to others? Will it be my fault? Is something like that sometimes simply an inevitability? If you see your child behaving in a scary, unsettling way, can you do something to change it?
Ugh, it’s very overwhelming. I count myself fortunate though, that as of now my son is perfectly happy to smile and cuddle and coo like an average baby.
I also read this book a number of years ago and it still often returns to my thoughts. I had no idea there was a movie based on the book, but I am going to search it out. It is an amazing story, and one that hits too close to home in my encounters with Kaeden, my autistic son. Though there are many differences, and I don’t believe to any degree that Kaeden is evil, some of the actions of Kevin and how it feels dealing with him and his outbursts resonate with me. I can’t wait to see the film! Thanks Tammy.
Tera, I’m actually really curious about what similarities you found between Kevin and your experiences with Kaeden. Did you feel like some of Kevin’s behaviour was similar to Autism? I remember wondering that in the beginning when I was reading the book and I thinks he even at one point has him checked to see if that’s what the problem was. I think the fact that Kevin could turn it on and and off at will really disproved that theory though.
I remember while reading the book really being able to relate the the mom in a lot of ways, but she sometimes seemed so cold to me. I don’t think Kevin had autism. However, many of his behaviors did portray those similar to autistic outbursts. For instance, Kaeden can go from playing a game and smiling in one second to suddenly throwing the entire table through the kitchen and threatening me with a chair. And then, given a bit of space and a short amount of time, unlike with Kevin, he is happy again. He turns it on and off so fast that it doesn’t give those around him a chance to come to grips with it all. With Kevin, he never seemed like he was happy. Kaeden is. But the threatening behaviors are similar, as well as doing the stupid things, though I think the reasons for each is different. Kaeden starts a fire without realizing the effects it could have, while Kevin seems to know exactly what he’s doing. I’ll think about this some more, and try to find the book where I wrote notes as I read. I know at the time, I feared more similarities than I do now that Kaeden is older. When he was younger, I think I hadn’t fully accepted his autism and was worried he’d end up doing something to land him in prison. Though I still worry about that, it’s now knowing he can’t comprehend the consequences of his actions and shows no sense of boundaries. So, while there are similarities in behavior, the underlying issue is more in the comprehension of the behavior.