Best Films of the 2010s: We Need to Talk About Kevin

Lists are beautiful. Films are beautiful. Opinions are subjective. Some films that we see now- some made for kids, some made in other languages, some made in 'trashy' genres- will one day become classics. Which ones? Here's my entirely subjective gaze into the crystal ball with my picks of the best films of the 2010s...

We Need To Talk About Kevin

 Every once in a while Lynne Ramsey directs a film and its one of the best, rawest and most direct films of its year (check out Morvern Callar please please please). This chiller was no different, combining one of the world’s best directors with a uniquely compelling actor in Tilda Swinton. Alongside Ezra Miller she crafts a mother-son relationship that is tortuous for both, making the sometimes icy mother-daughter bond in Lady Bird look like a daisy-filled pasture of unconditional love.

    Something has gone wrong somewhere. On one level this seems like the most unnerving of demonic horror films: the child’s eyes are full of maliciousness and hate right from the youngest age. Was he born evil, or was it grown in him like a dark seed? It is hard to answer because the whole film seems to take place in Swinton’s head, as she mentally skates around a traumatic event involving Kevin, time spooling backwards and forwards. In one scene the boy deliberately shits himself to provoke her with the most casual cruelty, and he has a violent tendency from a young age. On the other hand we gather that his mother didn’t want to get pregnant, is quick to anger and has a deep-seated resentment towards her son. Wherever Kevin’s darkness comes from, Jasper Newell and then Ezra Miller are magnetically watchable, even if it is like watching a car crash in slow motion. And the opening scene at La Tomatina, Swinton rolling in the red of the tomatoes, is one of the most extraordinary openings to any film I’ve ever seen.

Next Time: less bloody tomatoes, more waffles and Disney.