Kevin's Oedipus Complex ©

Israel 2021-11-28 08:01:20

Why? This may be the question many viewers want to ask after watching "We Need to Talk About Kevin"/We Need to Talk About Kevin (2011). This is also the answer that the heroine of the movie Eva (Tilda Swinton) has been looking for. The unfolding of the film crosses Eva's real life with her memories. She once had a free soul, was engaged in a travel writer and other jobs, had a husband who loved her, and lived a typical middle-class life. However, the birth of her son Kevin disrupted her life. He is a weird child who seems to be a little demon sent by heaven to torment her. As he was still in his infancy, he knew how to treat his parents differently to get the most attention. Not only that, he constantly used a two-faced style to pretend to be a normal child in front of his father and outsiders, and in front of his mother, in a provocative manner, he deliberately did a series of things that made Eva angry.

Eva's husband Franklin (John C. Reilly), despite his fatherly appearance, never seemed to take Eva's worries seriously. Regarding Kevin's actions, the one he said the most was, "He is just a child!" However, things are far from simple. When he was sixteen, Kevin suddenly did something incredible to everyone and was put in prison. Regarding Kevin's troubles, Eva never understood his real motive for choosing the crime. However, she had to bear the consequences of her son's crime. Not only did she lose her family and career because of what Kevin did, she also became a person spurned by many of the victims' families in the town.

The film is adapted from Lionel Shriver's 2003 novel of the same name. The mother-child relationship between Eva and Kevin is also one of the themes around the movie. As a mother, Eva is not incompetent. She spent a lot of time to accompany, educate, and take care of Kevin. She was anxious about her son's weirdness, annoyed by his son's indifference, and was relieved by his son's occasional intimacy. However, Kevin's attitude towards her was always lukewarm and sarcasm. Unlike his father, Kevin has always challenged his mother's tolerance with resistance. However, the end of the movie tells us that Kevin's true attitude towards his parents is not consistent with his apparent attitude. In fact, with a social psychological disorder, he has always been indifferent to most people around him, including his father and sister Celia (Ashley Gerasimovich). What he cares about is how and by whom he is followed. He pretended to be sensible in front of outsiders such as his father and doctors, precisely to minimize the attention of these people to him. On the contrary, Kevin has used his crying sound, a wall of ink, a cold arrow suddenly shot at the kitchen window, and even the final massacre to control Eva's attention to him since he was young.

It can be seen that there is a strong Oedipus complex hidden behind Kevin's seemingly unreasonable behavior. Throughout the movie, Kevin spied on Eva's personal space all the time, and every time Eva found other spiritual sustenance, he began to show a desire for destruction formed by jealousy. I remember a scene where Eva meticulously posted a map of his own collection for his room, and explained to Kevin that everyone needs a room with a personal mark. Then, Kevin sprayed his own ink on the wall of that room. In addition, he unscrupulously masturbated in front of Eva. The virus program was engraved on a disc with "I Love You" written on it, so that Eva lost all the writing she had saved on the computer. As for Celia's coming to life, Kevin did not show the joy of an older brother. On the contrary, he showed a sense of loss more, and he shared for the girl that his mother was angry about his attention. Therefore, since childhood, he always bullied Celia intentionally or unintentionally, and pointed at her until he shot her together with his father.

There are many specific ways of expressing the Oedipus complex. And Kevin's attachment to Eva does not appear in the form of "love". On the contrary, he adopted a way similar to the mental abuse of his mother to satisfy his psychological pleasure. In other words, Kevin's Oedipus complex has a certain sadomasochistic element. And the purpose of all the extreme measures he took was to make Eva unable to get rid of his existence. Because he believes that society pays far less attention to a top student than to a murderous monster. So even if his body is kept in prison, people will remind Eva all the time of her identity as a murderer's mother. It can be said that Kevin, who has a personality disorder, hopes to achieve the purpose of letting his mother Eva live in his shadow all the time through two methods of sadism and self-abuse.

View more about We Need to Talk About Kevin reviews

Extended Reading
  • Virgil 2021-11-28 08:01:20

    Scarlet and cruel. Is someone just born to be devil? Tilda Swinton showed his desperate love to the fullest. After watching the movie, he walked in the cold and windy New York. The feeling of depression was beyond description. She gave up her unrestrained life and devoted herself to the family. Why did she return to the cruelest blood? In fact, I really want to see the world in Kevin’s eyes.

  • Mina 2022-03-28 09:01:02

    Why is killing dolphins so annoying! When the scene came out, you were scared to cry, okay? How come no one told me this is a horror movie! ! !

We Need to Talk About Kevin quotes

  • Celia: Me and Kevin were playing Xmas kidnapping.

  • Eva: [standing at the counter of the miniature golf course, the mother sees a group of obese people and rails to her son] Whenever I see fat people, they're always eating. Don't give me any of this... 'slow metabolism, it's my glands' crap.