The Most Horrifying Movie About Motherhood Isn't 'Hereditary,' It's This (original) (raw)

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Published Jun 23, 2023, 1:01 PM EDT

Aidan Bryant is an award winning writer, filmmaker, and photographer originally from Long Island, New York, and currently based in Chicago, Illinois. He has written extensively about art history, American politics, cinema, and has won awards for his coverage of the COVID-19 pandemic, and labor organizing. His favorite films range from Martin Scorsese's Goodfellas to Barbara Kopple's American Dream, and his favorite TV show is Seinfeld. Aidan brings a deep knowledge of film history, as well as a variety of historical perspectives into his writing for Collider. Beyond film and television, he is an die hard New York Knicks fan, collects VHS tapes, newspapers, and American photo books, and hopes to one day appear on Jeopardy!. His favorite place in Chicago is the Music Box Theater, the best movie theater in the world period.He is currently looking into buying a Laserdisc player. One of these days he is going to get organizized.

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The horror of motherhood has been a prominent theme in horror films for years, dating back to movies like_The Bad Seed,_ and Rosemary's Baby in the '50s and '60s, and kept up by films like_The Babadook, Titane,_ and most notably, Hereditary. Yet, the film to really capture that feeling of overwhelming anxiety and dread that having a child can sometimes bring isn't a horror movie, at least not in the traditional sense. We Need to Talk About Kevin, directed by Lynne Ramsey, and starring Tilda Swinton and Ezra Miller makes motherhood out to be a horrifying, oppressive experience without a single demon or Satanic ritual, rather using something maybe too horrifying to put in a movie. To put it plainly, having your child turn out to be a school shooter is a much scarier and unfortunately, more realistic option than having them be the spawn of Satan. We Need to Talk About Kevin talks about that reality with all the care and consideration necessary, while also never holding back on its view on motherhood as a whole.

'We Need to Talk Abot Kevin' Doesn't Hold Back in Its Portrayal of Motherhood

Image via Curzon Artificial Eye

Generally speaking, when we talk about being a mother through the language of cinema, it is usually one of two things. A complex experience, but one of great meaning and importance, as seen in films like Lady Bird, or one of tragedy, often used as a springboard for the main plot, like Bambi, Finding Nemo, or most Disney films really. It is rare to see being a mother portrayed as an outright awful experience unless it's played for comedy, with messy kids throwing spaghetti everywhere and traipsing through mud and paint. We Need to Talk About Kevin is an outlier in that sense, as it never pulls a punch on being a mother. Eva, played by Tilda Swinton in an excellent performance, is a successful travel writer, who seems to be almost coerced into settling down and having kids by her husband, played by John C. Reilly in a great return to dramatic form.

Her pregnancy is portrayed with a scientific coldness. Swinton regards her pregnant body the way one would look at an alien, instead of the "glowing" trope often seen in popular culture. After a horrific birth, Eva and her son Kevin seem to be at odds from the very beginning, with him crying incessantly, and screaming almost anytime she is with him.This is where the film goes in an interesting direction. Kevin is portrayed as this sinister child in a way we have seen on screen before. He's a little Damien. He hates his mother but acts like an angel in front of his father. He breaks things, destroys his mother's office, openly antagonizes her and as he gets older, seemingly displays violent and concerning tendencies toward animals, and his little sister.

Eva, however, is portrayed just as harshly. She seems hostile towards Kevin like he isn't even human, let alone her child. When he won't stop crying, she stands next to a jackhammer, so she doesn't have to hear his cries anymore. When he won't roll a ball towards her, she seems genuinely angry that a literal child won't roll the ball back. But we know it's about so much more than the ball. She plainly tells him that if he wasn't born, she would be in France right now. In a key scene, she throws Kevin against a wall and breaks his arm. He lies and says he fell, but knows, even at a young age, that he has something over Eva now to use against her.

She is shown to be a downright bad mother, yet the film doesn't really judge her on that. It is presented as a logical conclusion to someone who doesn't want kids being forced into having them through societal constructs and expectations far out of her control. She was not meant to be a mother, did not want to be a mother, yet now she is a mother. This is contrasted through John C. Reilly, who is portrayed as the lovable, doofus-like father who wanted nothing more than to have children. But he is at work and doesn't do most of the child-raising, seemingly has no issues with Kevin, and sees none of Eva's concern about how Kevin behaves. Eva is trapped in a scenario that is supposed to be wonderful, yet is a prison to her. And why wouldn't it be? She seemed to be the only one to know that from the outset and was ignored until it was too late.

'We Need to Talk About Kevin' Confronts Real-Life Fears

Ezra Miller in 'We Need to Talk About Kevin'

Image via Oscilloscope Laboratories

Ramsey portrays time non-linearly in the film. From the outset, we see that Eva is living alone in a rundown house, a stark contrast to the palatial estate she lived on with her husband and kids. She is an outcast, screamed at, her house vandalized, and working at a rundown travel agency where she visits a now young adult Kevin in prison. As the film progresses, we see flashes of police cars at the school, Eva rushing to the scene, and her being called a murderer, and it becomes clear that Kevin committed a school shooting. As we go on, we do see one moment where Eva and Kevin bond, after he becomes sick, and Eva reads him Robin Hood. He then develops an interest in archery, training in the backyard, and becoming a skilled archer. Eva becomes more and more concerned with Kevin, and it begins to strain her marriage, with divorce now on the table.

As the timelines coincide, and we find that Kevin has not only committed a mass shooting but killed his father and sister as well, a deep horror sets in.This is so frightening to both Eva and the viewer because it is a very real fear. When you have a kid, you aren't going to be worried about them being possessed, but you may be afraid that they'll hate you, or that they'll be a bad person, or that god forbid they will be a victim of some awful crime. But to imagine that they could commit an act of violence like that is unspeakable, almost unimaginable. It is a real, tangible horror that can lurk in the darkest depths of your mind. To raise someone who does that is the ultimate horror, and that is why this film is so unique in the way it portrays motherhood. It does not portray a fear of the unknown, or the supernatural, but rather a fear of something very well known. Something is unspeakable because speaking it into existence would be considered awful in its own right. That is exactly where this film operates. You would never even want to think about this for a second, yet Ramsey devotes a whole film to it, forcing us to sit in this awful space for two hours. We Need to Talk About Kevin is a horrifying film, and one absolutely worth your time.