Film deals with tragedy

The first 20 minutes of "We Need To Talk About Kevin" confuses your conscience, showing you an array of cryptic emotions in scenes from flashbacks and the present. The storyline follows a younger- middle-aged woman named Eva (Tilda Swinton) who daydreams of her glorious yesteryear to help her cope with her wine-saturated, harsh reality.

This is one of those films that takes quite a while to really get a grip on what has actually happened, but when the tragedy is finally played out in full, it is totally worth it. You spend much of the film wondering why Eva is struggling so hard to find a moment of relief from the continuous jeering and jabbing that almost everyone in town directs at her every chance they get.

Eva drudges on through daily routines, mind-numbed, miserable and yet somehow strong enough to push on. She gulps down glasses of red wine to drown out the memories of the constant difficulty she faced alone while raising her toddler Kevin (Rock Duer) with her loving yet oblivious husband Franklin (John C. Reilly). Their mother-son relationship grows more secretly volatile every year with Kevin (Jasper Newell) doing everything in his power to make Eva's life a living hell. Franklin does not see this side of Kevin, though, because he conceals it well to everyone except Eva.

Seeing such a sweet and innocent looking child exhibit such ridiculous behaviors and perform such sinister musings will make you fear having children of your own. It bears a valid point that raising a child is not always fun and games, at least not a mentally unstable child. Even as a baby, Kevin would not stop crying and wailing; Eva at one point found remedy, while on a stroller walk, lingering by a construction site full of the sound of jack hammers cracking concrete. The most frustrating point of all is how alone Kevin's hidden personality makes her feel. Teenaged Kevin (Ezra Miller) is a surprisingly developed and multifaceted character that seems to have dealt with his inner-most demons and leads a typical high school life.

Watching him grow up really ties an unsettling knot in your stomach, and draws an aching heart for his mother who must deal with his secrets, pushing herself to the brink of insanity. Parts of the film really pull on the ole empathy strings and make you wish you could do something, anything to reduce the amount of pure stress Kevin causes in Eva's life. The real altruistic point of the story is that throughout all of his evil deeds, Eva still loves her son and consistently tries to connect with him on a deeper level in hopes of resolving their ongoing battle.

The imagery was starkly vivid and at times panic- inducing. Known for her short films, writer and director Lynne Ramsay delivered a beautifully dark and compelling full-length tale of a not-so-average family and life after disaster. Ramsay's directing style really draws attention to the physical effects of stress and torment in a lonely outcast's world.