Lynne Ramsay returns to the big screen spectacularly with the deeply unsettling WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT KEVIN; her directorial vision of this reverse-Oedipal nightmare is a fantastic film based on Lionel Shriver’s supposedly impossible-to-film novel.

Tilda Swinton holds the central role of Eva as we jump between the unfolding present and the past in her memories – the central defining event being a horrific act of violence committed by her son, Kevin, at his high school. If one were to pigeonhole the film into a genre, it would be psychological horror, but that would be simplifying the strands of Ramsay’s film too easily. The child referenced in the title is not Damian of THE OMEN – the horror here lies in the unravelling of a mother’s mind and her struggle to understand what drove her offspring to horrific acts and sociopathic tendencies.

Underscoring the whole affair is a nature versus nurture debate, from which Ramsay remains impressively stand-offish. In early scenes, we see the apparent disdain Eva holds for the young Kevin even before he was born – as other expectant mothers chat animatedly and show off their baby bumps, Eva shies away, hiding hers under baggy clothing and a disappointed gaze. Never explicitly falling either way (much to do with our subjective viewpoint through Eva), the film also depicts Kevin’s apparent tendency to toy with the emotional states of those around him. How much of this is Eva truly responsible for? Tilda Swinton’s remarkable performance leaves it very much up in the air.

“Even though Ramsay has layered the film with colours and striking vision, it resides firmly in shades of morally ambiguous grey.”

Both actors who portray Kevin, particularly Ezra Miller as the teenage version, are superb at conveying the sociopathy that so unsettles Eva. His unnerving conversations and acts around his mother bring a horrible sense of unease without ever slipping into clichéd celluloid psycho territory.

The amount of blood symbolism laid on by Ramsay is impressively unrelenting, even if some of the early scenes of the toddler Kevin risk falling into that evil-toddler stereotype. Overall, Ramsay has put together the film in a structure that allows the actors’ performances and the more nuanced plot areas to shine through. Even though Ramsay has layered the film with colours and striking vision, it resides firmly in shades of morally ambiguous grey.