We Need to Talk About Kevin

WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT KEVIN              B+          
Great Britain  USA  (112 mi)  2011  ‘Scope d:  Lynne Ramsay

“Way worse than I imagined,” was the comment heard coming out of the theater, which perhaps unintentionally perfectly expresses the point of the film, where the words of the title suddenly take on greater magnitude.  A decidedly difficult film, told completely out of sequence, which has a jarring effect on the viewer, keeping them continually off balance, as the story has a fractured and impressionistic style, revealed only in pieces.  It’s simply impossible to get comfortable with this film due to the harsh and uncompromisingly bleak nature of the story, despite the beautifully chilly and austere production values that might resemble a Kubrick film, cinematography by Seamus McGarvey, and once again a superlative musical track from Jonny Greenwood, but the downbeat mood, especially from Tilda Swinton’s continuously frustrated portrayal of the mother of a loathsome child Kevin, a son who hates her from birth, couldn’t be more oppressive.  Based on the best-selling novel by the same name from Lionel Shriver, adapted by the director and Rory Stewart Kinnear, the film hints all along of greater catastrophes lurking ahead.  Ramsay interestingly presents the town’s hateful reaction to Swinton before revealing what horrifying event they are responding to.  But all along, Kevin devises ways to express his contempt for his mother, while switching gears to become the supposedly happy and perfect son to his clueless father, John C. Reilly.  In another realm, this would be a child of the devil, told with horror subtext, where grotesque exaggerations would fill the screen along with impaled bodies, but here what damage Kevin does is almost always offscreen, where the audience is forced to draw their own conclusions.       

Originally trained as a photographer, Ramsay reworks the text into a highly stylized, contemporary visual world, including the perfect suburban home that becomes infested with dread, like a haunted house, where Kevin becomes the personification of evil.  Moving freely between the present and the past, Swinton experiences her own horrors from Kevin early on, where he simply refuses to do anything she asks, but she matches his vitriolic meanness directed at her with her own inappropriate behavior, growing more irritated over time, as the two develop their own language of avoiding one another.  In one of the strangest sequences of the film, Swinton is reading him a bedtime story, where in reality her eloquence with language is renowned, like listening to the voices of Laurence Olivier or Orson Welles, but this time Kevin grows so attached to the lurid description of bows and arrows in Robin Hood that he doesn’t want his mother to stop, actually curling up next to her in a sign of affection.  Afterwards, however, he remains his meanspirited and completely detached self, feeling nothing but contempt for his family members.  His father, however, buys him a bow and arrow set, becoming extremely proficient over time, which has the effect of introducing firearms to a mentally unstable kid.  Jumping ahead, while we never see any traces of Kevin with other students in high school, the audience is instead treated to the aftereffects of a horrendous, catastrophic event at the school which turns the entire town against Swinton, where interestingly Ramsay uses the lovely innocence of Buddy Holly’s song Buddy Holly - Everyday on YouTube (2:13) as a prelude to the event.

While the film recounts shocking and astonishing events by connecting personal family tragedy with the public’s reaction to unspeakable horrors, one might wonder why there’s an absence of psychiatric intervention, as this kid is definitely a danger to himself and others, and while that may be true, he’s also likely a smart and gifted student and not exactly a willing participant for treatment, especially at an early age where he’s already learned to manipulate adults through his own behavior, so why would he want to change that?  Swinton grows so suspicious of him that she searches his room for any sign of something amiss, intriguingly set to the Beach Boys In My Room - The Beach Boys on YouTube (2:10), where it’s as if his room has been wiped clean of any and all forensic evidence, knowing this would be one of the first places people would look.  His entire life shows a cunning and willful emotional detachment, which Swinton tries to match in personal indifference by avoiding having her buttons pushed, but she’s hopelessly drowning in the turmoil of her own shortcomings, feeling completely powerless and inept at being able to reach this kid.  What’s evident, however, is that this is a story of communal judgment, where she’s been judged an incompetent mother by the entire town, subject to sneers and stares, even getting socked in the face, and worse, developing a witch hunt mentality where she’s judged responsible for the behavior of her sociopathic son.  Swinton herself may be her own worst critic, grown weary from continually blaming herself, expressed through her cold and severe manner, but what’s inevitable is every day having to face the horror, guilt, and shame of living with a world soiled and contaminated by your own offspring.  Nine years since her last film, the first to branch away from working class Scotland, Ramsay’s unflinching vision spares no one and offers no easy answers, and is in itself a horrifyingly bleak and brutal film. 

My Week with Marilyn

MY WEEK WITH MARILYN                C+              

Great Britain  USA  (99 mi)  2011  'Scope  d:  Simon Curtis

Once more during the holiday season, viewers are blitzed by trailers of two big production, Hollywood style releases that include Meryl Streep as Maggie Thatcher in THE IRON LADY and Michelle Williams in this film as Marilyn Monroe, where in both instances the actresses don’t so much inhabit the real life roles as consume the part in body and spirit.  Williams has been getting the best reviews of her life for this film, where Roger Ebert Chicago Sun-Times [Roger Ebert] has already declared her an Academy Award nominee, and there is no doubt that she is excellent, as she continually pouts like a hurt puppy with demure affectations that demand not just attention but adulation whenever she’s around and she wears many of the same costumes and hairstyles, matches the voice inflection, even sings like Marilyn, but never for a single second can she be confused for the real persona of Ms. Monroe.  Similarly, but getting much fewer raves, Kenneth Branagh as Laurence Olivier, the director and actor in the movie, is a stickler for things like rules and punctuality and shooting on time, where Branagh hams up the role with pompous relish, coming across as a tyrannical authoritarian who throws tantrums on the set while waiting for Ms. Monroe to show up.   Based on the personal memoirs of Colin Clark, who had a minor role in the movie production of a relatively 2nd rate film, THE PRINCE AND THE SHOWGIRL (1957), shot in London, the story suggests he was an invaluable comfort to Ms. Monroe, perhaps even having an affair with her when she was suffering a crisis in confidence after her shattered marriage started to unravel with playwright Arthur Miller just weeks after they were married.  Despite Ms. Monroe’s real life reputation as the world’s greatest sex symbol, this is a rather timid and sexless version of her life.  Like the exaggerated self promotion and fictionalized speculation surrounding personal memoirs, this suggested love affair, much like the one portrayed in Eastwood’s J. EDGAR (2011), may never have happened at all, but that is the story of movies, to make one wonder. 

A child of wealth and privileged status, Colin Clark (Eddie Redmayne) is determined to make a name for himself in the movies, and to do it without his family’s help.  To this end, he runs off to London looking for a job in Olivier’s next production, which happens to star the infamous Ms. Monroe, where she is continually hounded by gawkers, photographers and the British tabloids.  Colin lands a role as an errand boy for Olivier and the producers, often to fetch the wayward American star, where in her ever prolonged absences she learns to depend upon his company.  While Olivier and the entire cast are waiting for Marilyn to appear on the set for an informal run through, Marilyn can’t go anywhere without her personal acting coach, method acting instructor Paula Strasberg (Zoë Wanamaker), where she remains personally and psychically inseparable, unable to make any move without her, a crutch if ever there was one, which completely exasperates the director on the film who simply wants Marilyn to effortlessly exude her natural sexual charm on camera for what amounts to a light and breezy costume comedy.  Marilyn’s approach, however, working for the legendary Olivier, considered the British actor of his generation, was if preparing for great British theater, wanting to broaden her reputation and be taken seriously as an actress.  Despite flubbing her lines and behaving like a diva offscreen, her onscreen presence couldn’t have been more captivating, much like floating on air, making those around her appear to be wearing lead boots.  Her natural beauty and air of naïve vulnerability was like nothing seen before or sense, as she depicts a neurosis laden modern temperament in every frame yet remains stuck in these ancient and sexually repressive costume dramas.  Michelle Williams is especially brilliant in the musical numbers and the successful daily shoots, where she’s literally mimicking this legendary screen presence, but her real life depictions of a fragile star depending on the kindness of a stranger, that being Colin, simply have no weight behind them. 

Colin Clark’s character is the real dead weight of the film, as he never evolves past a star gazer, a young kid who idealizes what’s in front of him, who’s already star struck just getting onto a movie set for the first time in his life, where his infatuation with movies is right out of CINEMA PARADISO (1988), most likely resorting to fantasy in his memoirs, where there’s a certain depth missing for why Monroe would be attracted to him in the first place, as he’s just a kid, really, like Jimmy Olsen at the Daily Planet, young, naïve, and inexperienced.  Without a real romance, but largely a friendly kiss and chat affair, this poses the question as to why make the film in the first place?  It’s lack of real drama is likely to be seen as something of a disappointment, where only the exploitation of a screen legend combined with a hot Hollywood property offers the enticing sizzle this film hopes to achieve.  Part of the problem is also costuming Ms. Williams to resemble Ms. Monroe, where she’s not as shapely, so they’ve obviously added padding around her hips to help recreate the image, which alters the curve of her natural waistline, but this shouldn’t be so noticeable.  Unfortunately, due to the tightness of the dresses worn, this is an unnecessary distraction throughout the picture.  Also, Marilyn Monroe’s face is so familiar, literally an iconic image, that it’s impossible to ever imagine you’re seeing anyone other than actress Michelle Williams onscreen, especially in the close ups.  Perhaps with previous Oscar winners Colin Firth as King George VI (2010), Sean Penn as Harvey Milk (2008), Forest Whitaker as Idi Amin (2006), Philip Seymour Hoffman as Truman Capote (2005), or Jamie Foxx as Ray Charles (2004), the personal identification with the screen image was not so entrenched in the viewer’s imaginations as Marilyn Monroe, perhaps the most photographed screen legend ever.  That notwithstanding, Michelle Williams, as always, gives a first rate performance, but she’s continually overshadowed by the hovering presence of the real Marilyn Monroe, where she pales in comparison.