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We Need to Talk About Kevin
Metascore
68 out of 100

Generally favorable reviews - based on 37 Critics

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 26 out of 37
  2. Mixed: 6 out of 37
  3. Negative: 5 out of 37
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  1. Chicago Sun-Times
    Reviewed by: Roger Ebert
    Jan 25, 2012
    100
    As a portrait of a deteriorating state of mind, We Need to Talk About Kevin is a masterful film.
  2. Los Angeles Times
    Reviewed by: Kenneth Turan
    Dec 8, 2011
    100
    It's a domestic horror story that literally gets to us where we live, a disturbing tale told with uncompromising emotionality and great skill by filmmaker Lynne Ramsay.
  3. Time Out New York
    Reviewed by: Joshua Rothkopf
    Dec 6, 2011
    100
    The movie toggles between two periods-before and after a catastrophe-and, were it not for Swinton's magnetism, it would be unbearable. Instead, you'll want to stay for the wallop.
  4. Portland Oregonian
    Reviewed by: Shawn Levy
    Mar 22, 2012
    91
    Watching it isn't easy, but it is definitely worth having waited for.
  5. Time
    Reviewed by: Mary Pols
    Dec 8, 2011
    90
    Ramsey's film has its own strengths. We Need To Talk About Kevin doesn't just bring you to the outskirts of a parent's worst nightmare; this fever dream of guilt and loss takes you straight inside.
  6. Salon.com
    Reviewed by: Andrew O'Hehir
    Nov 29, 2011
    90
    There are so many great things happening on almost every level of this movie, from Swinton's haunting, magnetic and tremendously vulnerable performance, which is absolutely free of condescension to the suburban American wife-ness of her character, to the many unsettling individual moments.
  7. Variety
    Reviewed by: Leslie Felperin
    Nov 29, 2011
    90
    An exquisitely realized adaptation of Lionel Shriver's bestselling novel. In a rigorously subtle performance as a woman coping with the horrific damage wrought by her psychopathic son, Tilda Swinton anchors the dialogue-light film with an expressiveness that matches her star turn in "I Am Love."
  8. St. Louis Post-Dispatch
    Reviewed by: Joe Williams
    Mar 9, 2012
    88
    Refusing to hold our hands, director Lynne Ramsay ("Morvern Callar") pushes far beyond the boundaries of topical drama into the realm of the surreal.
  9. Rolling Stone
    Reviewed by: Peter Travers
    Jan 13, 2012
    88
    Acting doesn't get much better than the subtly brilliant display put on by Tilda Swinton in We Need to Talk About Kevin.
  10. ReelViews
    Reviewed by: James Berardinelli
    Dec 8, 2011
    88
    A meditation on the pain suffered by a mother when her child turns out to be a monster, We Need to Talk about Kevin is the perfect tonic for holiday cheer.
  11. The A.V. Club
    Reviewed by: Scott Tobias
    Jan 11, 2012
    83
    In its best sequences, Ramsay puts her duress in dazzlingly visual terms, collapsing the past and present in an associative rush of red-streaked images and piercingly vivid moments out of time.
  12. Arizona Republic
    Reviewed by: Bill Goodykoontz
    Jan 26, 2012
    80
    It's not easy to make such a downbeat movie compelling, but that's what Ramsay, with great help from her star, has done.
  13. Boxoffice Magazine
    Reviewed by: Pete Hammond
    Dec 9, 2011
    80
    Uncomfortably tense but worth savoring, particularly because of Tilda Swinton's devastating lead performance.
  14. The New York Times
    Reviewed by: A.O. Scott
    Dec 8, 2011
    80
    Ms. Ramsay, with ruthless ingenuity, creates a deeper dread and a more acute feeling of anticipation by allowing us to think we know what is coming and then shocking us with the extent of our ignorance.
  15. Empire
    Reviewed by: Liz Beardsworth
    Nov 29, 2011
    80
    A triumph for Ramsay anchored by terrific performances. Guaranteed to haunt you for days, and possibly prompt a rethink on your position on parenthood.
  16. Austin Chronicle
    Reviewed by: Marc Savlov
    Feb 2, 2012
    78
    It's a disturbing film on many, many levels, but beautifully shot (by Seamus McGarvey) and shot through with a horrific sense of false hope. The kid is not all right.
  17. Washington Post
    Reviewed by: Ann Hornaday
    Mar 1, 2012
    75
    Lynne Ramsay's thoughtful, unnerving film works its strange power over viewers who are likely to find themselves as compelled as repelled by its fatally flawed key players.
  18. Miami Herald
    Reviewed by: Rene Rodriguez
    Mar 1, 2012
    75
    Tilda Swinton is the star of We Need to Talk About Kevin, and her performance is so complex and volcanic and transfixing that all of the film's flaws melt away.
  19. Chicago Reader
    Reviewed by: J.R. Jones
    Jan 28, 2012
    70
    Ramsay seems to be seriously intent on probing the outer limits of a mother's love and forgiveness, but the boy (played by a trio of child actors) is so unremittingly evil that the movie begins to feel like a grotesque remake of that old John Ritter comedy "Problem Child" (1990).
  20. NPR
    Reviewed by: Bob Mondello
    Dec 9, 2011
    70
    The film's bluntness doesn't diminish the power of the nature-versus-nurture questions Eva's asking herself. Or of Swinton's harrowing portrait of parental guilt.
  21. The Hollywood Reporter
    Reviewed by: Kirk Honeycutt
    Nov 29, 2011
    70
    This is, in a way, a real horror film about everyday things and a disconnected family.
  22. Tampa Bay Times
    Reviewed by: Steve Persall
    Mar 24, 2012
    67
    Next to Swinton's excellent portrayal of a woman on the edge of a nervous breakdown, the movie belongs to the two Kevins, young actors with matching arched eyebrows and sullen expressions.
  23. Entertainment Weekly
    Reviewed by: Owen Gleiberman
    Dec 7, 2011
    67
    The movie is creepy, but it has no texture or depth. It's like "The Omen" directed by Miranda July.
  24. Movieline
    Reviewed by: Stephanie Zacharek
    Dec 8, 2011
    65
    We Need to Talk About Kevin is a little too facile in the way it sets up the horrific climax: Just one look at this kid and you know he's trouble, yet no one besides mom can see it.
  25. Philadelphia Inquirer
    Reviewed by: Steven Rea
    Mar 8, 2012
    63
    Fragmented, dreamlike, a whir of memories and misery, We Need to Talk About Kevin is unsettling, but also somehow unnecessary.
  26. The Globe and Mail (Toronto)
    Reviewed by: Liam Lacey
    Nov 29, 2011
    63
    Ezra Miller's sneering, absurdly precocious evil-child performance makes him just another bad-seed horror villain.
  27. Slate
    Reviewed by: Dana Stevens
    Dec 12, 2011
    60
    Even in the film's weaker stretches, the fierce presence of Tilda Swinton made it impossible to tear my eyes away.
  28. New York Daily News
    Reviewed by: Joe Neumaier
    Dec 8, 2011
    60
    This is a mother's tale, and in Swinton's expert hands, Eva must ultimately deal with the fallout from an uncomfortable truth: She just never liked her kid.
  29. Charlotte Observer
    Reviewed by: Lawrence Toppman
    Mar 22, 2012
    50
    Critics starved for thoughtful movies will often mistake the will for the deed. A serious film about an important subject seems like an important film, even if the effort falls far short of the target. So it is with We Need to Talk About Kevin.
  30. Chicago Tribune
    Reviewed by: Michael Phillips
    Jan 26, 2012
    50
    All the movie has, really, is Tilda Swinton acting up a storm, which is more than enough for some. For me, given what's up with the rest of the picture, it's not quite.
  31. Christian Science Monitor
    Reviewed by: Peter Rainer
    Jan 14, 2012
    50
    It's a creepy and disturbing movie, but there's not a lot going on behind people's eyes. The soullessness lacks soul.
  32. Village Voice
    Reviewed by: Karina Longworth
    Dec 6, 2011
    50
    By treating Kevin's evil as a mystery to be solved, Ramsay only succeeds in making what was once allusive banal.
  33. New York Post
    Reviewed by: Lou Lumenick
    Dec 9, 2011
    38
    In this pretentious art-house downer version of "The Bad Seed," the only surprise is that the folks didn't ship the little monster off to the looney bin before he reached puberty.
  34. Slant Magazine
    Reviewed by: Ed Gonzalez
    Dec 4, 2011
    38
    The purpose of Lynne Ramsay's hodgepodge approach is to distract us from the flimsiness of a story that suggests a snide art-house take on "The Omen."
  35. Boston Globe
    Reviewed by: Ty Burr
    Mar 8, 2012
    25
    Ramsay delivers an overdirected, conceptually obnoxious art film that's torture to sit through, listen to, and think about.
  36. San Francisco Chronicle
    Reviewed by: Mick LaSalle
    Mar 1, 2012
    25
    It is a very good performance in a very bad movie.
  37. New York Observer
    Reviewed by: Rex Reed
    Nov 30, 2011
    0
    This is the most unwatchable horror movie masquerading as social comment I have seen this year.
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User Reviews

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User Score
7.0 out of 10

Generally favorable reviews- based on 51 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 16 out of 21
  2. Mixed: 1 out of 21
  3. Negative: 4 out of 21
  1. nilz
    4
    I just couldn't quite pull it off. "Kevin" was a film that did many things very right, but did enough things completely wrong to ruin it for me. Its hard to describe the disappointing aspects of the film, because so many of them are tied up with the expectations created by the really well done parts. The visual storytelling starts out strong, enabling viewers to get to know characters and plot elements on an emotional level with out everything being spelled out to the letter. The problem is the film begins to deal with absolutes, and the visual storytelling begins to fail. There are beautifully shot, almost abstract segments in the film which instead of hinting at larger elements of characters and plot, are often used to brush over key elements of relationships (the mother and father in particular) and diluting character development in the process. Kevin's character is portrayed as an absolute evil, and overall a very one dimensional, similarly with the father, who is completely clueless throughout the film. There is a subtlety that is wants so badly to be the core of the film but is consistently failing throughout through the hands of barefaced writing/directing. Tilda Swinton fights hard to keep her character interesting, but the other actors, especially those that played Kevin didn't stand a chance. Honestly, I can only Imagine that there were people working on this film who all had vastly different ideas of how it should turn out, and in the end it feels like the directing is what sunk the ship.… Full Review »
  2. IAmPhongNguyen
    10
    We Need to Talk About Kevin made myself speechless when the credits rolled. It was an absolutely a groundbreaking film and while watching throughout the whole film, I felt the actual depression of a mother thanks to the excellent performance by Tilda Swinton. We Need to Talk About Kevin is a film people should be talking about when I pass them. Right after the film was done, it was official. Kevin was one of the most unpleasant person I've seen on screen.… Full Review »
  3. Mickey
    10
    Less a "Bad Seed" rehash than an indictment of contemporary parenting skills, "Kevin" made my skin crawl on many levels. The outer need for perfection while the interior is crumbling, the idea that because a couple CAN have a child, they should, the unwillingness to actually TALK about Kevin... all of this leads to the creation of monster--but that creation is inevitable. Far smarter than most will give this film for, see it and watch it carefully. Until the final, horrific moments, is Kevin the monster, or are his parents? Who created whom? This is a chilling film guaranteed to haunt, and Swinton's performance is perfection. Understated and genuine, she is genius.… Full Review »
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