Kyle Alvarez’s The Stanford Prison Experiment depicts the controversial study that saw 24 male college students assigned roles of prisoner or guard in a mock prison environment. Overseen by Dr. Philip Zimbardo, the experiment was shut down after only six days, as the students began falling into their roles to a disturbing, unhealthy degree. Despite its divisive ethical implications, Zimbardo’s findings went on to greatly impact the field of psychology, specifically guiding the conversation of how good people can be influenced to do bad things in certain environments.

Avarez’s film is chilling in its unadorned depiction of the events that took place in the basement of Stanford University. It boasts cast of rising young actors including Tye Sheridan, Michael Angarano Olivia Thrilby and Ezra Miller, along with screen vets Billy Crudup and Nelson Ellis.

In San Francisco, I spoke with Alvarez and Dr. Zimbardo, who was the primary consultant on the film. The Stanford Prison Experiment is in theaters now.

What’s the biggest misconception about the experiment?
Alvarez: I think people are misled when people speak about whether it was ethical or not. They confuse the issue of ethics versus the value of the experiment. In making a film, part of you is inherently endorsing it. You’re saying, “This is worth looking at.” The critics dismiss the conversation around the experiment because they get lost in the question of ethics. That’s not to say the question of ethics isn’t important; it’s just a different conversation as far as I’m concerned. Obviously, this set in motion a lot of review board changes about why an experiment like this could never happen again. But that doesn’t say that we shouldn’t still be talking about it. That’s where I actually get kind of upset now that I understand the experiment on a deeper level. Don’t say we can’t have a conversation about this because you wouldn’t be able to stage the experiment today. That’s the misconception: to discuss the Stanford Prison Experiment is to discuss it as ethical or non-ethical. That’s a much lesser conversation to be had about it.

Zimbardo: To me, one misconception is that the study proves that everybody is evil. Lots of people say that. I think there was a New York Times piece that says, “Zimbardo Believes Everyone Is Evil.” No. I believe everyone is capable of evil. I believe, actually, that people are born good and can be corrupted by being put in certain situations. That’s a very different thing. We picked people who are good on every dimension we could figure, and we put them in a bad place and the bad place dominated them. We brought out the evil within, and we were able to switch their ordinary, good, wholesome orientation into a cynical, pessimistic, negative one if they were guards, and a helpless one if they were prisoners.

The experiment was of course a pivotal moment for the field of psychology. Talk about the importance of representing its events accurately.
Alvarez: It was a huge part of the initial inception of this iteration of the film. People have been trying to make it for ten years. Phil came onboard and worked closely with a screenwriter, Tim Talbott. Tim was the first one of the many screenwriters who tackled this project to say, “What happened here is enough for a movie.” To me, that was the defining thing for me. That’s not a criticism of Das Experiment, which is a form of entertainment in itself. But in terms of that movie being a representation of the Stanford Prison Experiment, what’s unfortunate is that it’s only cinematic in that it ends with someone killing someone else. That the message is only clear if we take it that far.

I fundamentally disagree with that. We talk about representing specifics of the experiment, but how about the broader things? I made sure that we hired kids to play the roles. These weren’t 35-year-olds playing teenagers. We have a 17-year-old on the cast. Part of the power and effectiveness of the story is their vulnerability and how impressionable they are. In other versions, they’re adults. They have backstories and you learn about their girlfriends and wives. You lose a universal quality to it.

I think there’s actually a stakes problem happening in filmmaking in general. It’s happening with our blockbusters especially. It used to just be, “Peter Parker has to save Mary Jane.” Then, it’s “Peter Parker needs to save New York.” Then, it’s “Peter Parker needs to save the world.” Then, “Peter Parker needs to save the universe.” It’s this thing where you engage less and less. I’m interested in how you make the audience engaged in something where the stakes are [more intimate]. Devin Faraci wrote a great piece about why Inside Out was so important because the stakes were mental well-being of an 8-year-old girl. There’s not a drop of blood in my film. No one dies in the end. How do you make that intense without the things we normally rely on? That was the challenge that was really exciting.

I was incredibly riled up after watching the movie. I was with a friend and I felt bad because I was not fun to be around after the movie.
Alvarez: You’ve got to give that to the actors. They really, really threw themselves into it. Chris [Sheffield] doing the push-ups, Michael [Angarano] being so committed to that guard and understanding how it would go from fun to disturbing to evil. The amount of work they put in to creating that mood was a big part of it.

Dr. Zimbardo, I think one of the keys to the film is the progression of your mental state, as portrayed by Billy Crudup.
Zimbardo: Billy does a beautiful job of being me. There are several points of key transformation where I become the prison superintendent and not the researcher. One of the points is when the parents come to complain about how bad their son looks when they visit him. I never say, “I’m sorry.” Instead, I flip it around and say, “What’s wrong with your son? Does he have insomnia?” Essentially, I turn it to say, “There’s nothing wrong with my situation; there’s something wrong with your kid.” The mom says, “He told me you wake them up at all hours of the night,” which was true. I say, “Well of course, lady. This is a prison. Guards have to account for everybody to make sure no one’s escaped.” She says, “I don’t mean to make trouble,” and that’s a red light. If she says it, she’s going to do it. And she’s right; her kid broke down.

I turn to the husband and say, “Don’t you think your kid is tough enough to take it? That’s a sexist thing. I know exactly what he’s going to say. “My son’s a leader,” blah blah. I shake his hand, eliminating the wife. She’s not going to make trouble now. As soon as her husband starts talking, she shuts up. A woman would never talk over her husband back then. It’s not until I looked at the video of that exchange afterwords when I thought, “Oh my god. You’re the thing you hate.” I work hard never to be a sexist, and here I am, saying these things. That was one of the first times I remember being aware of myself moving towards being a prison superintendent.

Talk about how your findings, specifically within the prisoner group, can be used to benefit other, larger groups of oppression, like the black community or the gay community.
Alvarez: The gay community is starting to achieve equality via exposure. A huge part of the misconception of the gay community is how it’s being portrayed. Suddenly, you start portraying gay people with families and things like this, and that’s where the media portrayal plays a big part. Me being more of a pacifist, I’ve always appreciated people being more aggressive. It’s Martin Luther King Jr. versus Malcolm X. Sometimes I find the gay community isn’t angry enough. Prop 8 took too long. When you look at the Stanford Prison Experiment and the revolting prisoners, specifically Ezra Miller’s character, it takes Nelson Ellis’ character to say, “He was just a part of the system. By revolting, he wasn’t revolutionizing the system; he was allowing the system to grow more powerful.”

Zimbardo: The consultant, Carlo Prescott—who’s maybe the most articulate person I know—he didn’t finish high school. I was teaching a Psychology in Prison course at Stanford and I brought him on as co-instructor. I got him a business card. Suddenly, he’s all the things he never was. He comes into the experiment thinking he’s the only black guy, and here’s this other black guy, a graduate student who’s much younger than him and very talented. Clearly, Carlo went, “That could have been me.” There was instant resentment. “You got all the breaks. I was in prison while you went to school.” There’s a little bit of that in the movie.

Alvarez: The scope of what happened was so hard to capture. So much happened in six days. Some of the most painful stuff on a writing and directing level was, “What do we lose? What do we cut?” The challenge of making a film in 25 weeks is that each moment needs to really count. Gaius Charles was so studious. He had notes for himself on scenes he wasn’t even in. It was great to work with Nelson Ellis as well. Olivia Thrilby only worked on the movie for three days. It’s almost embarrassing to work with such great talents.

The movie put me in the headspace of those boys, which was difficult, although that’s definitely a good thing. What I found most interesting was how unadorned the story was, cinematically.
Alvarez: Sometimes people want more of the director’s influence or more of a moral center, but in this case I was just interested in taking that kind of voice out of it and letting the events speak for themselves. So then you say, “Where am I the director on this?” With this film, it was really shot selection. Me and the DP said, the movie’s going to start of where you’re really aware of the geography of this space. You’re always going to see these two walls and everything is going to feel cramped in. This group of people fills the frame. Then, as the movie goes on, the individual people fill the frame. The claustrophobia changes. Reading the exit interviews from the experiment, a lot of the guys felt like it was a real prison. But it was just a back hallway of a building; they were grad student offices. My goal was to have the audience forget how small of a space it was. It’s very rigid early on, but then I deliberately didn’t care if the camera went out of focus near the end. Sometimes it’d go out of focus for five, six seconds.

There’s that shot where Michael is walking away from the camera.
Alvarez: That was not planned, but I saw it in the edit and I was like, that looks so good! I’ve done that twice in movies, where something goes out of focus in a “wrong” way, and it comes directly from The Graduate, where [Katharine Ross] realizes he’s been sleeping with her mother, and she turns back to him, and she’s totally out of focus for a good one-and-a-half seconds before we see her face. When you see it, it’s the director saying, “this is a film, and someone’s pulling a knob.” But because it’s so motivated by the experience the character is going through, it works.

Speaking of Billy Crudup, there’s a great deleted scene where he and Patrick Fugit have a conversation about how they love the mess-ups on a Marvin Gaye record. Marvin does a “Woo!” or “Ow!” on the song, and it’s their favorite part of the song. Sometimes the errors or roughness can be the texture of the movie as much as the clean cuts.

Zimbardo: I couldn’t be more happy with the movie. I can remember sitting at Sundance and saying, “Finally! The wait was worth it!” The acting is brilliant. The directing, the editing. Even the sound. Billy does a great job of being me, and Olivia Thrilby, although she has a small part, really has the charm my wife does.

Alvarez: If I had more time, that would be the character I would give more definition. But if the character’s only going to have three scenes in the movie, you need someone like Olivia to carry it.

In 1971, Stanford professor Philip Zimbardo began what was supposed to be a two-week experiment on the effects of a prison environment on both prisoners and guards. A group of male students, still hanging around during the summer break, volunteered to take part in the study for its guarantee of $15 dollars a day. Classrooms turned into prison cells, a hallway became the cafeteria, a broom closet acted as “The Hole,” and the volunteers split into two groups: prisoners and guards. Zimbardo had no idea how dangerous and unethical the experiment would turn out to be. Both sides almost immediately absorbed into the roles they were given, with the guards physically and psychologically abusing their prisoners. Zimbardo pulled the plug on the study six days in after the abuse—and his allowing of it—reached a breaking point. Zimbardo’s project, like Stanley Milgram’s studies on obeying authority figures (coincidentally receiving its own cinematic treatment this year as well), is now known one of the most infamous experiments on social psychology. The ethics of the experiment are dubious, but the outcome continues to remain a chilling reminder of how fragile our identities can be underneath the power of societal structures.

That kind of material begs for a film adaptation, and after nearly 45 years of false starts, Zimbardo’s experiment has finally made it to the big screen in The Stanford Prison Experiment. The plain, descriptive title reflects director Kyle Patrick Alvarez and screenwriter Tim Talbott’s approach to the material (adapted from Zimbardo’s 2007 book The Lucifer Effect); this is little more than a straight up re-enactment of the experiment itself. Billy Crudup plays Zimbardo, and aside from a moment with his girlfriend and former student Christina Maslach (Olivia Thirlby), the film’s focus is more procedural than personal. This choice makes perfect sense, and it’s not the first time someone has stubbornly stuck to the facts to make their point clear. Craig Zobel did the same thing with Compliance, a film that meticulously recreated an incident so preposterous it was difficult to believe it really happened. Zobel’s direction was stomach-churning by design, and it worked brilliantly. Alvarez does the same thing here, and while the results are certainly effective, they’re not as powerful.

That could be due to the fact that Alvarez has a bigger scale to work with, considering The Stanford Prison Experiment has an ensemble of around two dozen actors. Talbott’s screenplay winds up honing in on a few of the test subjects, including Ezra Miller & Tye Sheridan as the more rebellious prisoners in the group, and Michael Angarano playing a prison guard who fully embraces his ability to torment and abuse the inmates. The ensemble works together quite well, with most of them taking full opportunity of the brief moments they get to shine. Crudup turns out to be one of the weaker links since the attempts to sympathize with him fall flat as he allows the experiment to devolve more and more. Miller, Sheridan, and Angarano are all standouts, but the most impressive turn comes from Nelsan Ellis as Jesse Fletcher, a former prisoner hired on by Zimbardo to ensure the experiment’s authenticity. A sequence where Fletcher improvises a brutal takedown of one prisoner (Johnny Simmons) during a mock parole hearing is riveting to watch, as Fletcher begins relishing in his chance to play the part of those who oppressed him for so long.

In fact, the most compelling moments of The Stanford Prison Experiment occur between the observers and not the participants, with Zimbardo and his colleagues slowly realizing they’ve become a part of the study. But the ongoing turmoil in the mock prison is what primarily drives the film, and it’s fascinating to watch how quickly things spiral out of control. Alvarez doesn’t sustain the tension from the situation as each day passes, and much like the experiment itself it feels like the film starts to slip out of his hands once the two-hour runtime starts getting felt. By the time the climax hits—where Zimbardo finally reaches his breaking point—its impact doesn’t match the psychological degradation shown earlier.

But at least the lacking conclusion—including an awkward and misguided coda that has the cast re-enacting documentary footage—doesn’t take away from the power of what came before it. Alvarez does a terrific job at cranking up the tension over the first two acts, and at some points it’s easy to get immersed in the roleplaying going on, believing in the simulation because of the very real emotions going on within it. Jas Shelton’s excellent cinematography goes a long way in keeping the claustrophobic, oppressive mood going, mainly by shooting the tight, cramped and dull office settings with a wide Cinemascope ratio, a choice that makes every character look as trapped as they feel. The Stanford Prison Experiment’s procedural approach to Zimbardo’s now legendary study may only work up to a certain point, but even so it’s hard to deny how gripping this fact-based drama can get.

This is certainly not the first so-called movie rodeo for Gustave Flaubert’s 1856 novel Madame Bovary. The somewhat scandalous (at publication) realist novel has seen many film iterations. Sophie Barthes directs this latest attempt, written by first-timer Rose Barreneche (née Felipe Marino), and it’s rather a wonder that anyone felt that, one, what the world was lacking at the moment is another Madame Bovary adaptation, or two, that quite so much money and talent should be thrown into it. Considering the entire nature of the realism movement—gritty and hard perspectives on those in difficult or lowly situations, meant to show the truth of the human condition—this Madame Bovary is flat and unassertive.

By now Mia Wasikowska must be permanently corset-shaped. She has so many period-set films under her tiny belt. And more to come with this fall’s Crimson Peak . In Madame Bovary she is given some especially detailed, colorful, and decadent dresses to wear over those corsets, and the costuming of this otherwise droll film is quite possibly its most shining feature. But I digress, because despite the dated material they are given to work with, the performances of the film are quite strong. Wasikowska plays the Madame, Emma, who, at a young age, marries a country doctor, Charles Bovary (Henry Lloyd-Hughes) who loves her in an earnest, boring sort of way. Book-read and sheltered away in a convent school for years, Emma, finds married life to be more provincial then she perhaps anticipated. The more she learns of her unambitious husband, the more she finds herself easily distracted by the young law student Leon Dupuis (Ezra Miller looking distractingly pretty) who has captured her attention with his romantic notions and traveled experiences. When he declares his attraction to her, she rejects him but immediately laments that he leaves town.

Determined not to spend the rest of her life passionless, Emma is much more eager to engage in scandal when her next suitor comes calling. The Marquis (Logan Marshall-Green) is rich and red-blooded. They begin a steamy affair as Emma grows bolder, and yet more prone to escapism. With the help of smooth salesman Monsieur Lheureux (Rhys Ifans practically stealing the show), Emma misplaces her ambition into worldly decadence, filling her home with fancy home furnishings her husband can never dream to afford. But being the pushover he is, Charles remains oblivious to his wife’s misdemeanors and their growing debt. Meanwhile, Emma’s life plays out like a sad version of Goldilocks and the Three Bears. She tries out Charles (clarly a Mama bear) and he’s too soft. So she moves on to The Marquis (a definitive Papa bear) and he’s much too hard, leaving her broken. Finally she returns to Leon (whose baby-face isn’t the only thing defining him as Baby bear) and he is just right. But this is a morality tale, and we all know things don’t work out for Goldilocks. She needs to respect other animal’s property, and Emma needs to stop living in the 21st century when she’s clearly stuck in the 19th.

As is the case with many of these 19th century realist novels, the translation to film can be a bit drab. Mostly because the sorrows of the poor characters of the 19th century, rather than evoke sympathy in their plight, are often portrayed so pathetically, it rather feels like watching The Real Housewives of 19th Century Rural France. And in that world, no one gets a happy ending. Like last year’s In Secret, the adaptation of Émile Zola’s naturalist novel, cheaters (as justified as they may be) just don’t win. I won’t ruin the ending, though there’s so many version of this story floating around I doubt there are many of you out there who can’t guess. Interestingly enough Anne Fontaine’s Gemma Bovery is out now as well and is garnering positive reviews.

Barthes is an interesting choice of director, her most notable feature before this being the Paul Giamatti film Cold Souls. Which provides some explanation for his small role in Madame Bovary. The cinematography is reminiscent of Joe Wright’s Pride & Prejudice, minus the lens flares and warmth. Plenty of widely framed shots of the dreary French country-side. Emma in her colorful clothing shines among the blandness, but her smile-less face rather reminds us at all times of the film’s tone. Most puzzling is that Barthes chose to film so straightforwardly. There is very little deviation from the original story and yet no real emphasis on the naturalist/realist style of the novel. It all plays out with a restless predictability.

Considering the caliber of the ingredients—A-list actors, tried and tested content, gorgeous costumery—Madame Bovary is unexceptional and bland. While female inequity and subjection is still a relevant issue, and one Barthes could have played with more, the portrayal of one woman’s sexual dalliances and shopping sprees is not exactly empowering or modern. Most consider Emma Bovary to be a romantic, caught up in her fantasies, but this rendition offers very little of that starry-eyed quality. Without any emotional connection, its hard to root for or cry for Emma Bovary. And when sex and shopping can’t even spark the slightest of interest for this female reviewer, it doesn’t bode well for extended audiences.

In reaction to a leak to file-sharing sites on Thursday, Warner Bros. released the official HD version of the Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice trailer Friday afternoon.

Though it frankly isn’t the most exciting thing in the world (it’s pretty dour, actually), the trailer drops some significant clues regarding the film’s central conflict, which is likely ignited by the cataclysmic battle that capped off Man of Steel. The world seems divided on the hot topic of the red and blue alien from Krypton, some christening him a savior, others renouncing him as an untrustworthy totalitarian.

In a sonic collage of Superman-related sound bytes, we hear the voices of real-life figures outlining the implications of the hero’s existence, Neil Degrasse Tyson being the most notable of all. “We’re talking about an alien whose very existence challenges our own sense of priority in the universe.”

Though Clark probably isn’t comfortable atop the messianic pedestal the world’s put him on, he nonetheless appears to have most of the world groveling at his feet. There are clearly dissenters, though, as is evidenced by the shot of a statue of Superman at the beginning of the trailer, the words “FALSE GOD” painted across his chest by non-believers.

The biggest non-believer of them all, it seems, is Bruce Wayne, played by Ben Affleck. We get a good look of Bat-fleck in the Bat-suit (glowing eyes and all) near the end of the trailer as he stares up defiantly at Henry Cavill‘s Superman, hovering overhead in the middle of a lightning storm. It all looks epic and badass as hell, but you know what? The Man of Steel trailer looked awesome, too. So…maybe we should take a cue from Larry David and curb our enthusiasm.

In the comics, the reason Batman would often best Superman when they did battle pertained to their moral make-up: Clark Kent is a good person; Bruce Wayne is not. Clark, knowing he could crush Bruce with his pinky, holds back his punches, while Ol’ Bruce-y is never above cheating (i.e. shoving Kryptonite shanks into Clark’s ribcage) to gain an advantage. It’ll be interesting (nerve-racking) to see how director Zack Snyder plays with this dynamic. “Tell me, do you bleed?” Batman threatens near the trailer’s end. “You will,” he promises. Sounds good to me.

We’ve still seen little to nothing of the rest of the super-powered and super-evil ensemble cast, including Gal Gadot‘s Wonder Woman, Jason Momoa‘s Aquaman, Ezra Miller‘s Flash, Ray Fisher‘s Cyborg, and Jesse Eisenberg‘s Lex Luthor, though I’m willing to bet we’ll get a good look at them in the coming months. Until then, we’ll just have to wait until the film arrives on March 25th, 2016 to see how in the hell they’re going to cram introductions to all these gigantic heroes in one itty bitty movie. Check out the trailer below.

As the argument goes, it is rare to find a film that is better than the novel it is based on. This is simply because the cinematic representation can never quite hold the writers imagination or match the depth and layered details found amongst the printed page. The Perks of Being a Wallflower directed by Stephen Chbosky however holds a defiant advantage in the fact that it was also written by Stephen Chbosky. As a coming-of-age tale the film owes its success to the dazzling reality of the situations as if stolen from the audience’s very own adolescence. It is in these subtle moments that the film comes alive, with the quiet realizations that everything happening on the screen is not just about Chbosky’s characters but all of us, as well.

Charlie (Logan Lerman), the character in question, is a young freshman starting his first year of high school and he narrates us through the story from his perspective partly involved, and partly detached up on the wall as a ‘wallflower’. Obviously a unique person, Charlie at the beginning of the story is something of an introvert without any friends outside his family. However this changes when he meets Sam (Emma Watson) and Patrick (Ezra Miller), two seniors who take an interest in him and show him an alternate life. For the first time ever, Charlie goes to parties, music shows, hangs out with people and most importantly feels noticed, as if he is participating more in life.

The problem with this film is reading a review or hearing about it from someone simply cannot do it justice. That is thanks to countless terrible high school and college set rom-coms, which tarnish the whole subject greatly. The Perks of Being a Wallflower however is different and so should be treated differently. It holds a perfect balance in between a film with no substance and of one entrenched too far in the wrong emotions, tackling deep life issues but with humour sprinkled in the right moments. Underpinning this all is the psychological elements that Charlie and the other characters face stemming from some past traumatic events, which is something that adds character depth. This appeals to a wide audience and is again a reason for the film’s success as many people can connect with the issues on screen, ranging from, paedophilia, domestic abuse, suicide, homophobia, sexual exploration and of course unrequited love. This all becomes obvious between the characters through subtle, shared moments much like in real life and to the audience through the use of dream-like flashbacks, which adds an element of surrealism.

Helping greatly in the film’s success is the outstanding acting talents that shine through the film. Logan Lerman playing Charlie pulled off the awkwardly unique freshman perfectly and set himself out boldly as a new face. Emma Watson playing Sam pushes herself in all the right directions away from previous roles to mature and expand into new realms of cinema. However the main credit must fall to Ezra Miller playing Patrick, very much a dark horse he appears to be doing everything right to progress in the acting world, and he is doing so at an alarming rate. All three of them, brilliantly casted, really do make the film what it is and watching from the audience, you can’t help but think that Logan, Emma and Ezra have been waiting for these roles.

Anyone who watches The Perks of Being a Wallflower without prior knowledge of the story is in for the emotional and strikingly real performance promised, something you will wish could be relived. And likewise anyone who is already a fan of the novel will be happy to see the characters they know and love in a different format, continuing on past the pages onto the screen, as if they truly do mean something.

We Need to Talk About Kevin is haunting and chilling thriller that was based on a book by Lionel Shriver that rehashes the classic debate of nature-versus-nurture in an uncompromising art-house style. It marks the third feature film Lynne Ramsay has directed. The film is an unsettling view of a mother who must deal with her troubled son and the trouble he causes. Through the use of many flashbacks, the non-linear narrative reveals piece by piece how something is not right about Kevin.

Eva Khatchadourian (Tilda Swinton) waits patiently in the lobby awaiting her job interview while nearly the entire office of workers seems to be silent and starring at her. Not because she is just an outsider of the company but because of who she is. When her name is called the air out of the building has been sucked out. The interviewer says to Eva, “I don’t really care who you are or what you have done so long as you can type and you can file you can have this job.” Eva is relieved and thanks her.

As she walks out of the building she interviewed in with a half-smile of relief an older lady walks up to her verbal assaults her and then punches her in the face. A man who witnesses the incident asks if he should call the police on the lady, Eva responses no and takes the blame herself. At this point in the film we are not sure what has happened exactly. But we know whatever it is it is obviously not good.

Kevin was ornery his entire life. As a baby he was almost always screaming, except when held by Franklin (John C. Reilly). He would not participate in rolling back a ball to his mother. Eva was concerned that perhaps something was wrong with her son so she brings him to a doctor. First she thought he may have damaged hearing but a doctor said he could hear just fine. Because he was not talking as other children his age have by now, she thought maybe he had autism. But the doctor insisted that there is nothing wrong with Kevin.

As Kevin grows older so does Eva’s frustration with Kevin. She cannot get him to do anything she wants him to do. She had to change his diapers well past the point that a child should wear them because he refused to cooperate. But Kevin has always been receptive of Franklin, even before he could remember as a baby, which has always bothered Eva. Franklin does not see what all the fuss is about with Kevin.

It appears that only Eva notices the dangers of the problem child while everyone else around her thinks he is just a typical teenage boy. Something about the satisfaction he gets when doing something wrong is disturbing to her. I will not reveal what ends up happening, not that it would completely ruin the film but because the film does such a good job showing you bits and pieces of what happens.

Eva believes she deserves the blame for what Kevin has done. Her punishment is not moving away and dealing with people that treat her like dirt. At one point in the film she buys broken eggs and does not ask for a refund in order to not being seen in the grocery store, then eats an omelet filled with broken shells. She even believes that she will go to hell for all eternity.

The use of the color red is liberally used throughout the entire film to symbolize blood and danger. Everything from vibrant close-ups of an alarm clock, curtains in their home, ketchup on a plate of eggs, Kevin’s toys, aisle of tomato soup cans, red is found in almost every scene. You do not even have to be paying close attention, it is so wonderfully overwhelming that you cannot miss it.

You know an actor has done their job when you cannot imagine anyone else playing their role. Tilda Swinton went beyond that, it was if the role was written for her. She says so much with her body language and expressions alone, her best scenes require no speaking on her part.

We Need to Talk About Kevin is like a train wreck, you do not necessarily enjoy what you are watching but yet it is so compelling that you cannot turn away. It is wonderfully shot with symbolism in abundance, a score by Jonny Greenwood that is as eerie as the film itself and stellar acting performances. As the title suggests, once the film is over you will need to talk about Kevin.