We Need to Talk About Kevin

Tilda Swinton and the three actors who played her son at different ages.

Woman has a horrible son. He's wears a diaper until he's 8 or 9. He's not incontinent. He's just a jerk. Most of the movie is in flashback so we know he's committed some monstrous act that's made his mother, now living alone, an outcast and target of abuse.

After school shootings, there's usually some sympathy for the screwed up kids who commit the crime. It was clearly misplaced in the case of Columbine High School. We had one here who was an undiagnosed paranoid schizophrenic. Most seem vaguely pitiful, but no more than grown-up mass murderers.

It was a grim, serious movie, so I shouldn't mention it, but there's a scene where the kid is preparing to carry out his crime. He's bought a number of kryptonite bike locks. His father (John C Reilly) asks what he needs them for. He's going to re-sell them at school and make a fortune. His father quips that he's another Donald Trump.

Tilda Swinton as his mother. Ezra Miller as teenage Kevin.