873. We Need To Talk About Kevin (2011)

Starring: Tilda Swinton, Ezra Miller, John C. Reilly

Director: Lynne Ramsay

Running Time: 112 mins

We Need To Talk About Kevin is a British film about a woman who spends her life struggling to love her disturbed child, and despite all her efforts, she realises that nothing can prevent him from descending further and further into horrific insanity.

This is probably the most depressing film I’ve ever seen. It’s a painful two hours of melancholy and suffering, which leaves you feeling frustrated and shocked to your core by everything that happens. However, it’s such a powerful experience, and it’s something that will grab you from the off and never ever let you go.

Basically, this is right up there with Requiem For A Dream in terms of films that I absolutely despise and will likely never want to watch again because they’re just so heavy-going and depressing. However, much like Requiem, there’s no doubting the uniqueness of this film and the extreme power that it has in twisting your emotions to absolute breaking point.

The plot here is absolutely stunning, and whilst it is so simple, it’s difficult to talk about anything without giving away major spoilers. The one thing is that many have called it just a ‘sensationalist horror flick’, but I disagree: this is so much more – it’s a deep and powerful psychological thriller that more focusses on the extreme melancholy of a situation like this.

One of the most important reasons that this film manages to play with your emotions so much is because of the stunning central performance by Tilda Swinton. In this film, she is so honest and stripped down to the bare bones of acting, with on the whole relatively little dialogue and a huge emphasis on subtle meanings and facial expressions to really hammer home her character’s state of extreme depression and confusion.

Also, the reason that a lot of this film is so shocking is because it feels extremely sadistic. The disturbed child, played brilliantly by Ezra Miller, is the main base for this atmosphere, but that character is mirrored in all sorts of aspects, most strangely, the soundtrack, which has a lot of very upbeat and fast-paced songs that are used in some of the most depressing parts of the film, which is something very subtle that makes this an uncomfortably shocking film to watch.

Overall, this gets an 8.7, because it’s such an incredibly powerful film that will hit you painfully hard, but will absolutely engross you and amaze you for its entire runtime.