WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT KEVIN: Guilt. It’s A Killer.
Out, Out, Damn Spot! Guilt. It’s a Killer. That’s Eva. Scrubbing her nails. Scraping the red paint from her house’s exterior. She tries to wash it all off, but it never comes clean. The Red. Blood Red. That’s Eva’s world in Lynne Ramsey’s We Need to Talk About Kevin. Yes, Eva lives with the deep belief that she has “blood on her hands.” That it’s all her fault. Everything is. There's no question where she will be in the afterlife. Hell. Eva is absolutely certain of this. Murderer! Who else would want you now?! We enter the dominion of Eva’s guilt in We Need to Talk About Kevin. We see everything through Eva’s guilty eyes.
A wild crowd roars as they carry someone who looks almost Christ-like. A woman. Being sacrificed. Another woman shouts: “Oh my God, you stole my baby… Murderer!” Angry shouting. Feet splash in red liquid. Like blood. Eva has “blood on her hands.” It’s mayhem.
Let’s Talk About Eva...
We Need to Talk about Kevin begins here, with Eva’s sacrifice. A sacrifice to GUILT. Eva. The mother of Kevin. The tormented, guilty mother. She can’t love Kevin. And Kevin can’t love her. Why? That’s the big question. Chicken or egg? How did it all start for Eva? What happened to her long before she became Kevin’s mom? What kind of childhood did she have? What kind of mother, one who only appears as a voice on the telephone once? It could not have been good. The film shows us nothing. But Lionel Shriver’s book tells us about a reclusive, needy mother Eva had to care for after her father died in combat. What about Eva’s needs? She’s scared of them. She’s scared of losing Franklin. He’s the love she’s been looking for all her life. He’s everything to her. Eva can’t live without Franklin …
Yet even with Franklin, Eva is afraid to stay. She remembers being with him. Kissing him on the street in the rain, he’s swinging her around, her face happy, his voice saying, "Promise me you’ll never go away again," and she’s saying, "I will never, will never. I will never. “Promise me." “I promise you. I promise you. I will never.” “Promise me...”
“Going away” is something Eva’s used to. She was always going away from something. Perhaps it was mostly her mother’s needs after her father died. Needs that trapped her. Needs that interfered with her own. Needs she ran from. Going away wasn’t just about loving travel. Having a baby brought all that back. Babies need a lot. Just like her mom did. Kevin feels like an intruder. He takes some of Franklin’s love. Franklin loves Kevin without hesitation. So whether she realizes it or not, Eva sees Kevin as a threat.
New moms bring their histories into motherhood - deprivation, jealousy, fear, and even a sense of invasion. Yes, babies need a lot. If a mom has a history of giving too much and getting too little, her baby’s needs can feel like they “get in the way” of her own needs. Eva began motherhood with fear, conflicting feelings, and a lot of resentment.
Eva’s Guilty Flashbacks
Resenting your baby isn’t good for you or for your baby. And Eva isn’t self-centered, narcissistic, or sociopathic. So. Eva lives with a lot of GUILT. Guilt she can’t shake. Out, Out, Damn Spot. Guilt that overtakes every waking moment. Guilt she tries to shut out. She’s terribly traumatized by the school massacre - by both the horror and her guilt. She feels it’s her fault. She can’t get that out of her mind. What did she do wrong? She lives in flashbacks. Of the past, of her mistakes, of Kevin’s childhood, of his tragic act.
Her pregnancy: Her long hair is chopped off; she can’t look pretty or sexy anymore. Her joie de vivre is gone. She grows increasingly morose as her belly swells. Franklin is happy with the ultrasound, but Eva is not. She doesn’t want this baby. While other pregnant, chattering women expose their bellies, Eva stays covered up and detached; she doesn’t interact with any of them, picking up her bag and walking out as little girls in pink ballet tutus scream, laugh, and run down the same hall.
Kevin’s birth: Eva screams, and the doctor tells her, “Eva, stop resisting, stop resisting.” She does not want to be a mother, with all that it means to her. There was no mother for her. The baby cries. Franklin holds him, not Eva, as he sits by her bed in the most barren hospital room imaginable. She looks as numb as she does now: “gone.”
A baby who won’t stop screaming. A baby she can’t comfort. A baby she doesn’t know how to care for. A baby she holds at arm’s length. Not close. Kevin’s screaming. Screaming. Accusing her. His constant screams, like jackhammers pounding in her head, driving her out of her mind. And no one to help her. Only Franklin is there, saying, “You just have to rock him a little bit. You just have to rock him a little bit. There’s my little dude…” which makes her feel like a bad mom. Who can’t do anything right.
RED IS GUILT. Eva’s guilt. She’s trying to scrub the red paint off. Out, out, damn spot.
Kevin’s voice on Halloween: "I don’t like that, Mommy." Eva says, in a childlike voice, "Mommy was happy before you came along, Kevin. Do you know that? Now Mommy wakes up every morning and wishes she were in France." She says it in a sing-song voice, as if she’s hiding how she feels. As if Kevin doesn’t feel it. It’s a terrible standoff between mother and child. Neither will give in or show any softness or love. Kevin mirrors Eva. Eva mirrors Kevin. And it goes on and on. They are stuck in it.
A little boy who won’t love her. Who refuses to talk. Who won’t look at her. Who says, “Nyeh, Nyeh, Nyeh,” to all her attempts ... Attempts colored by conflict. By frustration. By anger. By hostility. By hurt. As remembered through Eva’s GUILTY mind.
And that scar on Kevin’s arm? The one she strokes in prison and asks if he remembers? Eva does. RED IS EVA’S GUILT. It haunts her. He refused to tell her what came after the number seven. Then, to show her up, Kevin quickly counts to 50. In retaliation, “If you think you’re so smart,” Eva gives him complicated numbers to add instead of complimenting him or telling him that he is smart. It’s a sad war that Eva can’t end. To spite her, Kevin poops in his diapers. Eva is so out of control with anger that after she changes him, she throws him against the wall. His arm breaks.
On the ride home from the doctor, she tells him, “What Mommers did was very, very wrong, and she is so, so sorry.” Kevin doesn’t respond. But he tells his dad he fell off the changing table when Mom went to get the wipes. Eva admits, “No, it was all my fault.” Yet when she kisses Kevin good night and says, "I love you, kiddo," he rejects her: “Nyeh, Nyeh.” In prison, though, he tells her, “That’s the only honest thing you ever did. You know how they potty train cats? They stick their nose in their own shit...”
Red is Eva’s GUILT. “You killed my baby. Murderer! Murderer!” Out, Out, Damn Spot...
Let’s Talk About Kevin
What is nature, and what is nurture? It’s complicated. True. Eva didn’t want Kevin. At the very least, she was deeply conflicted about being a mom. Kevin felt that, so he couldn’t want her. He turned away aggressively. Violently. Provocatively. Out of envy. Jealousy. Not allowing anyone to have anything. Not Eva. Not Celie. Not Franklin, either. Especially not himself. Except for those few brief moments when he was little and sick. But he quickly turned away again. Got hostile. Against his own need for love.
They move into a huge house. Franklin sits with Kevin, who’s about four years old but still wears diapers, as they play video games and yell, "Die, die, die, die, die." And that’s exactly what Kevin did. For real. Eva flashes back to a woman watching her injured or dead daughter being wheeled out on a stretcher. Out, out, Damn Spot. Eva’s GUILT.
There are so many moments of Kevin’s hostility. Of his turning against Eva. Against any longing for her love. She’s pasting pieces of maps on the walls of a room in their new house. Kevin comes in with a glum, unyielding look and says, “Those squares are dumb.” She says, “Everybody needs a room of their own, and this is Mommy's. I can help you make your room special.” “What do you mean?” “So that it has your personality.” “What personality?” Eva walks away to get the telephone and comes back to a whirring sound; Kevin has taken his paint guns and sprayed paint all over her walls. Sobbing, she kicks the paint guns and stomps on them, the red paint splattering onto her shoes. RED IS PAIN.
Kevin won’t stop. He’s defiant, “knowing” he has power over her. He’s hurt. He can’t stand his hurt feelings. So instead of feeling hurt, he hurts Eva. Hurts her badly. This isn’t conscious. It’s what a child does with his feelings. Some children become more violent than others. That isn’t Eva’s fault. Children are born with their own emotional makeups and vulnerabilities. It’s hard for Eva because she feels completely responsible and because Franklin doesn’t see this side of Kevin. When he comes home, Kevin’s his sweet little boy: "Hi, Daddy, how was work? Did you take any cool pictures?”
Eva has nothing. RED IS EVA’S HURT. Eva will have a baby who loves her...
Killing His Need for Love
Celie’s born. Kevin’s pushed over the edge. Celie’s the baby Eva chose. The baby Eva wants. Daddy loves her, too. It’s torture for Kevin to watch. So Kevin tortures Celie. He kills Mr. Snuffles, her beloved guinea pig, and flushes him down the garbage disposal. Celie isn’t just a competitor. Kevin feels he never had a chance at his mother’s love. Once again, there’s no help. Not for Eva. Not for Kevin. Franklin is blind to it all.
Flashback. Eva’s walking with Celie when she spots Kevin at a bookstore, looking at her picture for a book signing: “Eva Katchadourian, legendary adventurer.” This is the mother he longs for. A mother who loves him. But he denies he was at the bookstore. “Nope. Not there.” He makes a sandwich with messy red jelly… RED IS BLAME.
Celie loses her eye. Kevin was supposed to be watching her. Franklin blames Eva for leaving the Draino out. Eva knows she didn’t, but Franklin won’t see that Kevin did. Kevin feels no guilt. Kevin won’t feel anything. That’s why he can do what he does. Eva says Celie will need a glass eye and worries that kids will call her names.
Kevin taunts, “I guess you forgot what it’s like to be a kid. YOU JUST SUCK IT UP.”
Yes. Kevin sucks it up. But he does more. He projects his feelings. He makes others feel what he can’t. He peels lychee nuts and eats them provocatively. They look like eyeballs. All the eyes around – Franklin’s, Celie’s, the Doctor’s. Eyes that cannot see.
Kevin is full of envy. Of murderous rage. Celie gets his mom's love. She must die. The kids at school get love. They must die. Mom gets his dad's love. Dad must die. Mom will have nothing. He’ll kill all the love. To torture Eva. (To punish himself...) That’s the bullseye he’s aiming for. Killing his wish for love. As a little kid, he used a suction-cup arrow to shoot at the window where Eva stood, giving her a defiant, hostile look. Kevin will want nothing. He’ll defy his need for Eva’s love. That’s Kevin’s greatest triumph.
The firefighters open the school’s doors after the massacre. We see Kevin in the gym after he’s killed his fellow (loved) students, taking his bows, flourishing them like a conductor at a symphony. He walks out in a white shirt, calm and handsome, “a celebrity,” something he’s never felt. Eva watches him exit the school. Eva knows.
Out, Out, Damn Spot... EVA’S GUILT. It’s a killer.
But is it all Eva’s Fault?
Eva wakes up. In a horrible house. Someone has splattered red paint on the outer walls. She’s scraping, scraping it off. Scraping away all the evidence. Washing. Washing the red off her hands. The blood of guilt on her hands. RED IS EVA’S GUILT.
Out, out, damn spot...
There’s judgment. Coldness. Hate. There’s how much Eva hates herself... But then a young black man in a wheelchair yells, “Hey, Mrs. K, Mrs. K, it’s Soweto. I just wanted to see how you were doing. The doctor says there’s a chance I’ll walk again…” He’s one of Kevin’s victims, and he seems to be the only nice person left in the world.
Flashback: Soweto is being carried out of the school on a stretcher, bloody, wearing an oxygen mask. And Eva is scrubbing, scrubbing, scraping off the RED paint, the blood on her hands, that she lives with. The blood of the lives Kevin took, and the life she feels she took from Kevin ... by hating being a mother; his mother. RED IS EVA’S SELF-HATE.
We tend to blame the mom. Some moms blame themselves. But you can also blame yourself too much. Eva does. There are voices all around her. Voices out there. Voices inside. Mostly, those voices are figments of Eva’s GUILT. That she deserves to be shunned. That she’s damaged goods. “Who would want you now?!”
RED IS EVA’S SHAME. Out, Out, Damn Spot. RED IS EVA’S GUILT.
But it’s not all Eva’s fault...
Showing Up for Kevin
“Do you know why they let me come see you today?” Eva asks Kevin. “It’s my anniversary.” “Yes. Two years. I want you to tell me… WHY?” “I used to think I knew. Now I’m not so sure.” Kevin looks defeated. “Time’s up,” the guard says. They walk toward each other. Eva pulls him into a big hug. He lets himself lean into her. Maybe he needs his mom now. (A little.) Eva’s lost it all to her GUILT. But she shows up at the prison every week. She endures Kevin’s spite as he cuts his fingernails and lines them up in a row on the table between them. She lives with horrible losses and terrible guilt. But maybe there’s less hate between them, and less self-hatred now. Eva shows up. Every single week. No matter what. And maybe things get a little better every single day.
At home, Eva sobs. She sniffs a Led Zeppelin shirt. Franklin’s scent? One of Franklin’s shirts? She’s lost everything. Franklin. Celie. She’s lost it all because of Kevin’s hate. She irons men’s T-shirts, folds them neatly, and puts them in a dresser drawer. She makes the bed and smooths the bedspread. A song plays: I’m Nobody’s Child.
I was slowly passing an orphan's home one day
And stopped there for a moment, just to watch the children play
Alone, a boy was standing, and when I asked him why
He turned with eyes that could not see, and he began to cry
I'm nobody's child I'm nobody's child
I'm like a flower just growing wild
No mommy's kisses and no daddy's smiles
Nobody wants me; I'm nobody's child
Eva’s making a place for Kevin. A home. When he’s released from prison. This boy, her boy, who once felt like nobody’s child, she’ll embrace. It’s too late to go back. But not too late to move forward. Not too late to appease the GUILT that has been killing her.
That Guilt. It’s A Killer.
Eva was the sacrifice, in her own mind. She feels like a bad mom. She blames herself. And. Because of her GUILT, she put herself in a prison of her own making.
Out, Out, Damn Spot. It’s an obsession. A compulsion. Scrubbing. Scraping. Trying to get rid of what she believes she’s done. The GUILT is killing her. Making her go dead.
But it’s a complicated set of confounding factors for both mother and son. It’s Eva’s history. Her fears. Her unreadiness to be a mom. Her mistakes. Her fear of losing love. It’s Kevin’s hurt. His envy. His psychoneurological makeup. What he was born with.
GUILT. It’s a killer. But Eva stands up to her GUILT. She goes for repair. She becomes a better mom. She doesn’t abandon Kevin. Ever. And Kevin lets go of his certainty that killing is the only way. He doesn’t really know why he did it. (Even if we might see...)