Plot
Adolescent Kevin Katchadourian (Ezra Miller) is in prison after committing a massacre at his high school. His mother, Eva (Swinton), a once-successful travel writer, lives alone in a run-down house and works in a mall travel agency in a town near the prison where she visits Kevin. She looks back at her memories of him growing up as she tries to cope with the anger and hostility of her neighbors, who know her to be Kevin's mother. Her memories are shown in flashbacks.
Throughout his life Kevin has been detached and difficult. Eva had problems with identifying as a mother and has trouble bonding with Kevin, which affects his behavior; as a baby he cries incessantly, and as a child he resists toilet training, rebuffs Eva's clumsy attempts at affection, and shows no interest in anything. While he is still small, Eva's frustration with his intractability drives her to throw Kevin against the wall, breaking his arm. They return from the hospital with Kevin's arm in a cast, and when his father, Franklin (John C. Reilly), asks how he broke his arm, Kevin covers his mother with a lie, using this incident later to subtly blackmail her into giving in to demands like going to the store. When Eva tries to talk to her husband about her increasing concern about Kevin's problems, he dismisses her concerns, and makes excuses for Kevin's behavior. The only real affection and interest Kevin shows towards Eva occurs when she reads him a book about Robin Hood. When reading the part of the story where Robin competes in Prince John's archery contest Kevin snuggles with Eva and spurns Franklin when he interrupts the story. Franklin gives him a bow and arrow set and teaches him archery and Kevin soon becomes an excellent marksman.
Eva and Frank have a second child, Celia, who is lively and cheerful, but her birth does nothing to lessen the tension within the family as Kevin immediately shows disdain and jealousy towards her. A few years later when Celia's pet is killed and she is blinded in one eye by an incident with a caustic cleaning fluid, Eva is convinced Kevin is responsible, while Franklin insists these events were accidents and that their son is blameless. This pattern of suspicion on Eva's part, combined with Franklin's ruthless defense of Kevin, ruins their marriage and intensifies Eva's fear of her son, as she sees growing evidence of Kevin's pleasure in hurting others. This eventually leads up to the massacre, where Kevin murders multiple students with his bow and arrow set, before locking himself in the gymnasium. As Eva arrives at the school from work, along with the other concerned adults, the Police break the bike lock on the outside gymnasium doors, shown earlier to belong to Kevin. Kevin voluntarily walks out, turning himself over, and revealing himself to be the killer. Eva finally arrives home, only to find the house empty and dark. To her horror, she discovers in the backyard the arrow-penetrated corpses of Franklin and Celia, whom Kevin had killed before the massacre.
The film concludes on the second anniversary of the massacre, when Eva visits Kevin in prison. Kevin is anxious because his transfer to an adult prison is imminent. Eva asks him why he committed the murders and he responds that he thought he used to know, but is no longer sure. Eva gives Kevin a hug and says her good-byes while he is taken away.
Read more about this topic: We Need To Talk About Kevin (film)
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