UK/USA | 2011 112 minutes

DIRECTED BY

STARRING

 

Lynne Ramsay's psychological thriller, and best-film winner at the London Film Festival, is an excellent adaptation of Lionel Shriver’s book. It examines the parent-child bond between a first-time mother and her unplanned son, and shows just how this seemingly most natural of human connections is not always to be relied upon.

 

It is not the story of Kevin, played by Ezra Miller in his teenage years, so much as his mother Eva, brilliantly played by Tilda Swinton. Her unintended motherhood breaks her down over many years, aided by Kevin himself whose behaviour develops from irritatingly mindless to intentionally manipulative. Ramsay uses a non-linear structure, following two timelines simultaneously. One precedes, the other follows, and they merge with an event so serious that it has re-shaped the family’s lives.

 

Sound design, colour palette and editing help the audience enter the mind of a woman who may be suffering a nervous breakdown, or may be the victim of her vindictive child. Endless analysis would be possible; on the other hand, it's as much a rich sensory experience as an immersive psychological case study.