Sorry I have been away for a while peeps, travelling a lot for work and then got rather sick, but now back for a little while before I jet off again.
Managed to do a little movie watching recently, and the most recent is 'We Need to Talk About Kevin'.
I read the book back in 2003 and loved it. Not the easiest read, the story is about Eva, an independent and career driven women, who questions her life and soul when her son commits a heinous crime. Written in letters to her now estranged husband, she talks about whether it was her fault their son became the way he did, maybe she didn't love him enough, care for him enough, or even talk to him enough. I remember being so upset by the way it ended, so traumatised I couldn't stop thinking about it for a few days.
The film is a perfect adaptation of the book. Shooting the letters aspect as flashbacks, we see the before and after, the struggles with her evil son and the struggles of dealing with what he did.
It is a bleak film, shot in a way that always make you feel on edge. You never feel comfortable with what you are seeing, strange angles, distorted images and sounds constantly fill the screen. By deliberately doing this, you feel as Eva does, on edge all the time, never knowing what is going to hit you next. She constantly lived in fear, as do you. And then it hits you. And it hits so hard, that even though I knew it was coming, I still felt shocked by it all.
Tilda Swinton is not everyone's taste. I didn't like her much in The Beach, but loved her more recent films and this is a star turn for her. You feel everything Eva feels just through the look in Swinton's eyes. A truly Oscar worthy performance from her. As well as Ezra Miller playing the ever so slightly androgynous son, flicking between evil and sanity so fast, its hard to keep up.
Go and watch it people, its not a date movie or a film you should watch when that little too emotional or tired as it will mess your mind up and leave you drained. But then it will leave you drained anyway!
