We Need to Talk About Kevin

Eva never really wanted to be a mother—and certainly not the mother of the unlovable boy who, on a spring Thursday in 1999, three days before his 16th birthday and a few weeks before Columbine, shot 10 people in his school's gym. Now, two years later, it is time for her to come to terms with marriage, career, family, parenthood, and Kevin’s horrific rampage in a series of startlingly direct correspondences with her estranged husband, Franklin. Uneasy with the sacrifices and social demotion of motherhood from the start, Eva fears that her alarming dislike for her own son may be responsible for driving him so nihilistically off the rails.

Just to make it clear, yes, it's fiction.

Written by Lionel Shriver in 2003. A radio adaption was made in 2008 and a film was released at the end of 2011, starring Tilda Swinton as Eva, John C. Reilly as Franklin, and Ezra Miller of Californication as Kevin.

Tropes used in We Need to Talk About Kevin include:

• Abusive Parents: Eva's frustration with Kevin eventually leads her to throw him, breaking his arm. It's clearly stated that this causes him to gain a small amount of respect for her, and she becomes the only one who is allowed to see his 'true' nature.
• Alliteration: Kevin's "tabloid name" is K.K.
• Age-Inappropriate Dress: Kevin deliberately wears all his clothes at least a size too small, and starts a unique fashion trend in the juvenile prison where baggy clothes are the norm.
• Alpha Bitch: Laura, one of the victims in the school shooting. Eva suspects this is due to a warped crush on Kevin's part.
• The Archer: A malign version. In the school shoot-up, Kevin uses a bow and arrows. This attracted criticism, as it was seen by some as Shriver deliberately avoiding the issue of gun control for fear of offending people either side of the debate.
• Armenia: Eva is proud of her Armenian heritage to the point of insisting her son bear her surname, not Franklin's. Of course, at that point Kevin's still in utero and she doesn't know what she'll be dealing with. She later points out that her surname became famous only because of Kevin's school shooting.
• Axes At School: Bows and arrows actually.
• Bishounen: Kevin.
• Brilliant but Lazy: Kevin is very smart but just doesn't see the point of getting straight A's.
• Cassandra Truth: Franklin simply refuses to believe that there is something wrong with his son, to a point where it almost grows demented. Kevin is simply putting up a paper thin guise as a happy boy to his dad to hurt Eva, and resents his dad for failing to see the truth when he was throwing up such a painfully see through disguise.
• Consummate Liar: Kevin, since he was six.
• Creepy Child
• A Date with Rosie Palms: Kevin does this with the bathroom door open. It's implied he's doing it just to mess with Eva, rather than having actual urges.
  • Even worse in the film version; Eva walks in on him doing it in the bathroom. He locks eyes with her and just does it faster.
• Dangerous Sixteenth Birthday: Eva suspects Kevin of having timed the shooting before this. A court could and did try him as an adult, but because he was under 16, they could only sentence him as a juvenile. He gets seven years.
• Epistolary Novel
• Establishing Character Moment: Kevin starts speaking late, but then in whole sentences, the very first of which is "Don'like dat".
• Even Bad Men Love Their Mamas: In the end, it's obvious that this is the case. The nearest he actually comes to expressing it explicitly, though, is the heartwarming "Left you alive, didn't I?"
• Eye Scream: What happens to Celia.
• Fake American: Tilda Swinton as Eva.
• Gory Discretion Shot: The massacre.
• Hell Is That Noise: The film version ensures that you will never hear a lawn sprinkler the same way.
• Hot for Student
• Idiot Ball: From Eva's account, it looks as if Franklin acquires one and clutches it in an unrelenting death grip from the moment he finds out she's pregnant.
• Kick the Dog: Poor Gerbil...
• Loners Are Freaks: Eva's agoraphobically house-bound Reclusive Artist card-designing mother. Kevin himself largely avoids social interaction with anyone where possible, and has exactly one known friend, whom he actively despises.
• Lovable Coward: Celia in a nutshell.
• Mama Didn't Raise No Criminal: Large parts of the book are Where Did We Go Wrong? about this trope. They tend to exonerate the parents of any blame for the kids' actions...
• Meaningful Name: Celia, a kind, loving and well-behaved little girl who is portrayed throughout the story as the complete opposite of Kevin, has a name meaning "heavenly". Also appropriate given that she is eventually murdered by Kevin.
• Mind Screw: The end of the book.
• Nature Versus Nurture: The book and film is based around the nature/nurture debate -- did Kevin grow into a murderer because mummy didn't love him enough, or was he a psychopath from the word "go"? It is ultimately left to the reader's imagination to decide how Kevin became the person he was. There is evidence to support both cases, but Kevin's indifference (and even admiration) toward Eva's neglect strongly suggests it's the latter, but there's hints to the former as well
• Nice Guy: Kind of played with for Franklin, since this doesn't work out well for him or anyone else involved.
• Nietzsche Wannabe: Kevin. "There is no Point".
• Not So Different: Both Kevin and Eva invoke this towards each other, but hardly ever at the same time or with agreement from the target. Tilda Swinton says she had planned from the start to "twin" with the actor(s) who played Kevin.
• Obfuscating Stupidity: Eva's explanation for Kevin's delay in starting to speak, get housetrained, and interact with other kids, as well as his consistent academic underachievement (the latter suspicion is shared by his English teacher).
• Odd Couple: Eva and Franklin.
• Oedipus Complex: Implied by Eva's reaction to Kevin's peculiar habit of making sure his mother knows (and hears, and as far as possible sees) when he's getting to grips with himself - she feels like she's being sexually harassed by him. You may now apply the Brain Bleach. Kevin always had a special connection with Eva - she kind of admires that her son shows his true personality to her, but never to his father.
• Pac-Man Fever: Horribly straight example in the film. When child Kevin is playing a game with his father, they randomly mash buttons on the controller (which they are holding wrong) and shout cringe worthy lines such as "How do you jump?" and "DIE! DIE!" at the TV, which blares arcade sounds.
• Parental Neglect:As time goes on, Eva's avoids her child and his odd ways. But Franklin either deliberately goes out of his way to only see to see the good in Kevin or just plan avoids his side of the parenting.
• Patriotic Fervor: Franklin has this to the point that it almost seems too over the top to be real. Then again, the book is from Eva's account.
• Pragmatic Adaptation: The movie leaves out Eva's writing letters to the dead Franklin, and a few other things are changed as well. Kevin's weapon of choice is changed from a crossbow to a longbow, and instead of sitting calmly waiting to be arrested, he strolls out of the gym with his hands up.
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Kevin does this a few times. To his mother (with a side of Hannibal Lecture), to his supposed best friend, to his father, and in the inevitable TV documentary to pretty much everyone except Eva.
  • The one to his mother is especially harsh for two reasons: 1.) He delivers it at a moment when Eva thinks that she and Kevin are finally establishing a connection. Kevin asks her a question about her views on America and when she answers, Kevin proceeds to systematically tear both her answer and Eva apart. ( Of course, the reader isn't sure if Kevin purposely set his mother up with the question or if he really was interested in her answer and responded accordingly.) and 2.) As cringeworthy as it is, Kevin isn't exactly wrong.
• The Resenter: Kevin, towards everything and everyone, including himself. His mental disorder makes him perceive everything as boring, pointless and uninteresting, and this is how he feels every second of his life.
• The Reveal: Franklin is Dead All Along. Kevin killed him and Celia before he went to the school.
• Sibling Yin-Yang: Kevin and Celia.
• The Sociopath: Confirmed by Word of God.
• Soundtrack Dissonance: Most of the songs are perky pop or western songs from the 50's or 60's.
  • The outstanding example is Buddy Holly's "Everyday", which is played as Eva begins to have a nervous breakdown in her car driving home on Halloween night. As one reviewer puts it, "If I hear Buddy Holly's 'Everyday' any time on Halloween day after this film, I may have a complex".
• Stepford Suburbia: How Eva views the neighbourhood Franklin relocates the family to - without asking her - in order to give his little boy what he considers a wholesome childhood environment.
• Troubling Unchildlike Behavior: Kevin displays this from birth. He displays absolutely no interest in anything (no, seriously. anything), leaving Eva with a dilemma: how do you discipline a child who does whatever he wants despite any threats and has nothing you can take away from him, with the husband on his side?
• Too Good for This Sinful Earth: Celia. This is also how Laura's mother tries to portray her daughter when courting press attention after the shooting.
• Took a Level in Jerkass: Colin from the film. Good lord, what an asshole.
• Unreliable Narrator: Eva. The book is her written account of what happened, and the movie takes place in her mind. However, we ultimately never know if anything is exaggerated or fabricated, since we never get a different account to compare hers to. Her brutal honesty makes us trust her more, though.
• Villainous Breakdown: Kevin gets a few of these, including a memorable one just before the school shoot-up.
  • Hinted at the end Two years after the event, Kevin's smarter-than-thou attitude has been almost been crushed by the juvenile prison system. showing him with notable scars and wounds. The prospect of going to an adult penitentiary shows him visibly terrified.
• "Well Done, Son" Guy: Played with, in a somewhat sadistic way. Franklin thinks he is this to Kevin, who sneers at him behind his back ("Mr. Plastic"). On the other hand, Eva suspects that there may also be a deep need to please somewhere beneath Kevin's willingness to put on a near-constant fake front, and a related anger that his dad actually buys into and likes the fake front.
• Where Did We Go Wrong?
• White Anglo Saxon Protestant: Franklin's background. Less immediately noticeable for him than for his parents.