"We Need to Talk About Kevin" on TCM now.

I'm just catching the end. What a disturbing movie to play in the middle of the night. Are they playing it because it's Ezra Miller's birthday? I had no idea he was 28 until I looked him up.

Wait, what? They're playing recent films on TCM now? I cut the cord in '06.

I could only watch that movie once it disturbed me so much.

Happy Birthday Ezra. I hope you are getting the help that you need.

Every woman I know who's seen this and is a mother says this is the most disturbing movie they've ever seen.

R3, R1 here and I wanted to turn it off, but it was like watching a trainwreck. I tuned in about 30 minutes after OP posted about it being on and the next thing I know (spoiler alert) he was shooting up the gym with the hunting bow. Hopefully I can go back to sleep now.

I watched it tonight and while I didn't care for the fragmented format, the tension was unrelenting and I was never bored. Tilda Swindon is my favorite actress and as great as she was in this, the focus was always on her and it had a negative effect. Despite the film's title, she never talked about Kevin or was anything but passive. Had the focus been on Kevin or anything other than her passive observation inaction, I could have identified or sympathized with her. Instead she did nothing despite blatantly obvious signs something was very wrong with him throughout his childhood.

She shouldn't have had children and Kevin picked up on this.

What's the film about? Why so disturbing? Please don't tell me lots as I scare easy. One sentence, someone?

SPOILER R9, a woman who should not have had kids has a nut job son who ends up killing a bunch of teenagers at a school as well as his father and sister.

Not too much of a stretch for Ezra.

Same, r3. I hadn't planned on watching it again last night, but I was drawn in. It really is a great film, disturbing as it is. And Tilda can be added to the Great Performances Shockingly Not Oscar Nominated thread.

R5 It was directed by a woman (the film is part of TCM's 2-month "Women Make Films" spotlight), which makes total sense, as only a woman who's given birth can truly tell this story through the eyes of Swinton's character.

It's an excellent film, one of the best of the past decade, but I find it hard to watch. Not because it's disturbing, after being on the internet for more than half my life now I'm immune to disturbing shit, but because Tilda Swinton's character is insufferable.

She hates herself sooooo much. Soooooo much. She stays with that loser for years despite what a shitty husband, father, and man he is. He never seems to give a shit about her for the entirety of the film yet she never leaves him. It's ridiculous and infuriating.

The fact that she blames herself for Kevin's "incident" is also infuriating. Maybe I don't get it because I'm not a mother, but Kevin grew up the way that he did because of his father. The movie tried to present it as a "nature vs nurture" thing but failed at making the Kevin-Tilda dynamic seem double sided. She'd try to raise him normally, he'd act like a psycho in some way, and she'd tried to discipline him for it like a normal parent would only to be shot down by her idiot husband. Correct me if I'm wrong but aside from the arm breaking incident she never really did anything wrong.

It is one of the few films that shows how ambivalent and awkward many women are about being mothers. One friend went through 36 hours of horrendous labor and admitted to me that she didn't really love her son. She associated him with the worst day(s) of her life. The dad had to take over the loving parent role.

I know more than one woman who was all hyped up to be a mother then when reality hit regretted it bitterly . 2 in my family. Neither raised their children. They divorced the fathers and gave up custody and have very little real relationships with their kids.

who did ezra have to fuck, to get this movie played on tcm?

Thank you r10

Lynne Ramsay's first 2 films were good, but this and her last one sucked.

This felt like the last time Tilda actually played a human being, though. I'm so bored of her gimmicky roles.

I read the book. Apparently Kevin hated her even from the time he was an infant, perhaps sensing she didn't really want him. He grows into the most monstrous child imaginable. She hates him but she realizes she's his mother and therefore has to take care of him and provide for him no matter how she feels about him. At the end of the novel she's keeping his room ready for him when he gets out of prison, which won't be that long in coming because he gets a relatively short sentence for his horrific crimes, supposedly because of his young age. The novel's theme seems to be that motherhood can be an unescapable hell on earth. I'm sure for some women that's the case.

We need a sequel.

[quote] Despite the film's title, she never talked about Kevin or was anything but passive.

Kinda the point Bucko.

R20, perhaps for the sequel Kevin can start choking women.

It's a bad film. The book, however, is excellent. Not only far more nuanced as you'd expect, but also very funny in parts. More of a satire of contemporary America than a horror story.

r19 Yeah, a really disturbing book. [SPOILER] My take on the ending was that she kept the room ready because it was her penance for not being able to or wanting to love her child. And that this inability on her part made her just as awful as him. The idea that parents, especially mothers, may not love their children is still considered outrageous and taboo. I liked that the book explored that.

I remember reading - I think it was in Clockers by Richard Price - a passage where one of the characters was ruminating on his sons and how he really disliked them and thought they were assholes. I was kinda shocked at the time. But, then again, I really didn't like my family much either.