We Need to Talk about Kevin
Lynne Ramsay
»As testosterone gets more and more of the blame for everything from crime to the banking collapse, this set-up resonates. In a world in which they seem increasingly out of place, perhaps this film is telling us that what we need to talk about is men.«
– The Guardian
Eva, a travel-book author, is faced with a living nightmare. Things will never be the same again. Something unspeakable happened to her family: her son killed several classmates at school. Condemned by all and sundry, Eva finds the courage to openly confront the harrowing questions. Could she have prevented the inexplicable? Was she as a mother out of her depth? We Need to Talk about Kevin dares to go into these questions without coming to any final judgement. Director Lynne Ramsay has cast the film as a psychological thriller. Step by step, she unravels the web of memories, first signs and missed opportunities into a compelling story about guilt and responsibility. She shows the radical inner views of a woman who has lost everything but who needs to go on living. In a film which has attracted much debate internationally, Tilda Swinton embodies the role of the mother with an acting performance that has already won several citations – including the European Film Award in the Best Actress category.
Awards for ›We Need to Talk about Kevin‹ (Selection)
British Film of the Year, ALFS Award, London Critics Circle 2012 | Beste Regisseurin, British Independent Film Award 2011 | Bester Film, London Film Festival 2011 | OFCS Award, Online Film Critics Society 2011 | Jurypreis für die beste Regisseurin, Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival 2011
Lynne Ramsay
Lynne Ramsay studied photography at Napier College, Edinburgh, and then entered the National Film and Television School where she specialised in cinematography and direction. Her graduation film Small Deaths won the Prix du Jury at the Cannes Film Festival in 1996. Three years later, her debut feature Ratcatcher opened the Edinburgh Film Festival and also picked up many awards. Morvern Callar (2002) was Ms Ramsay’s first adaptation from a literary source – in this case Alan Warner’s eponymous novel about a young woman whose boyfriend commits suicide. Morvern Callar won the British Independent Film Award for Best Actress (Kathleen McDermott) in 2002. Children and young adults are often found at the centre of her films in which issues of guilt, death and what will come in the afterlife are posed. So it is in We Need to Talk about Kevin which was adapted from the novel of the same name by Lionel Shriver.
Films by Lynne Ramsay
Black and White Town 2005 | Morvern Callar 2002 | Ratcatcher 1999 | Gasman 1998 | One Eye 1997 | Small Deaths 1996 | Kill the Day 1996 | Sweet Heart 1996
