We Need to Talk About Kevin

Synopsis
A tormented mother grapples with feelings of accountability and intense grief after her troubled 15-year-old son commits an act of violence that shakes their community to its very core. Eva (Tilda Swinton) had a promising career when an unplanned pregnancy threw her life off-balance, though she selflessly put her own ambitions aside to give her son, Kevin, a good life. From the moment Kevin was born, there was a palpable tension between mother and son. Years later, as a teenager, Kevin (Ezra Miller) snaps. As the community recoils from Kevin and his family, Eva begins to question whether or not she ever really loved her son in the first place. John C. Reilly co-stars in this psychological drama based on the novel by Lionel Shriver, and directed by Lynne Ramsay (RATCATCHER, MORVERN CALLAR).

Reviews
"Tilda Swinton gives a terrifically nuanced performance....Deeply disturbing but fascinating." (USA Today)

"[A] disturbing tale told with uncompromising emotionality and great skill by filmmaker Lynne Ramsay." (Los Angeles Times)

3.5 stars out of 4 -- "Acting doesn't get much better than the subtly brilliant display put on by Tilda Swinton in WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT KEVIN." (Rolling Stone)

4 stars out of 5 -- "[U]ncomfortably tense but worth savoring, particularly because of Tilda Swinton's devastating lead performance." (Box Office)

4 stars out of 5 -- "Faithful in tone and structure to Shriver's novel, WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT KEVIN shows Ramsay extending her range with impressive assurance." (Total Film)

4 stars out of 5 -- "KEVIN is an intense film, powered by sublime photography, and Jonny Greenwood's score." (Uncut)

4 stars out of 4 -- "As a portrait of a deteriorating state of mind, WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT KEVIN is a masterful film." (Chicago Sun-Times)

"[I]n its best sequences, Ramsay puts her duress in dazzlingly visual terms, collapsing the past and present in an associative rush of red-streaked images and piercingly vivid moments out of time." (A.V. Club)