Simon Dillon reviews the film

We need to talk about Kevin is a monumentally distressing piece of work that is brilliantly acted and directed. Also, I hated it. That isn't something I can often say about what is clearly one of the best films of the year, yet director Lynne Ramsay's adaptation of Lionel Shriver's novel is one of those rare occasions.

From hereon, there are spoilers as it is difficult to discuss the film without them, although I will not spoil the final act.

The plot involves desperate and scared Eva (Tilda Swinton in a career-best performance). Her house has been vandalised, she is accosted and assaulted in the streets, and she is struggling to get a job. In flashbacks we learn that she put her career and plans to travel the world on hold after getting pregnant, but that she fails to bond with her baby boy Kevin who screams constantly. Indeed, as Kevin grows up the boy is something of a terror, as he deliberately refuses to speak or be potty-trained, whilst at the same time he is affectionate with his father who dotes on him. Eventually becoming a frighteningly petulant teenager, Kevin shows further signs that he is psychotic - killing his little sister's pet and causing her to lose an eye - before massacring a load of children in High School with a bow and arrow (something that was possibly inspired by the Robin Hood stories his mother told him).

I wasn't a big fan of Lynne Ramsay's previous films (Ratcatcher in particular was critically acclaimed but I found it a pointless wallow in misery). However she directs this brilliantly. There are many unforgettable images here - the nightmarish opening as Eva dreams of being accosted by a blood-stained crowd, the horrific scene of the crime as parents watch corpses of their offspring being wheeled out, the reflected target in a close-up of Kevin's eye, and so on. Performances are all brilliant, including all the relative unknowns that play Kevin at various ages, John C Reilly as Kevin's father, and especially the excellent Tilda Swinton, who as I mentioned earlier has never been better. The entire film is shot through with a nightmarish, dreamlike quality, and the editing and music (Jonny Greenwood), compliment this tone perfectly.

The real question is why did I hate it? To be fair, I haven't read the book, but on the evidence of the film I must say I am struggling to find a coherent answer.

Is it just not my type of film? I am a big fan of other "evil children" films like Village of the Damned and The Omen. However they are clearly science-fiction or horror, whereas this is rooted in grim reality, reflecting massacres such as the one at Columbine High School. Could that be why I didn't like it? As someone who has no problem appreciating and enjoying all genres, that cannot be the reason.

The story does not offer any solid reasons as to why Kevin turns out the way he does. However Eva wonders looking back whether it was her fault in some way. There are even suggestions that reading Kevin Robin Hood stories was a bad idea. Was this why I hated the film? Obviously I don't buy the view that Robin Hood is bad for children (ironically, the day before I saw this, I re-watched Errol Flynn's classic 1938 The Adventures of Robin Hood with my seven year old). But that is too small a reason to detest it.

Did I hate the film because it somehow puts forward negative propaganda about motherhood? Although not explicit, there is arguably an inherent view within the film that because motherhood held no reward for Eva in the case of Kevin, she would have been better off having an abortion and continuing with her career. But later in the story Eva has a much more positive experience with her daughter, so that can't be entirely true either. Besides, negative propaganda or not, some mothers do experience difficulties with their children, and scenes early in the film - standing in a street next to a pneumatic drill to drown out screams from the baby, frustrations over potty-training and so forth - resonate in a darkly comic way.

Perhaps it is because I have had such a positive experience of parenting personally that I am at odds with this, and simply don't want to consider that other parents might struggle to raise difficult children. But that doesn't seem likely either, as I enjoy grappling with difficult and complex issues that are thrown up by films like this.

I think instead the answer lies with the fact that the film ignores the spiritual dimension completely. At times, it seems apparent that Kevin is demon possessed, but this isn't ever referred to as no doubt Lynne Ramsay (and for all I know Lionel Shriver) don't believe in such things. But it is interesting to note that in high profile child killer cases, such as Columbine or the James Bulger murder, occult involvement was a factor (even though it wasn't widely reported). I do not naively assume that children are born good, but it takes something quite extreme to turn anyone into a killer, and that something almost always has a significant spiritual force behind it. I'm not suggesting for one second that involvement in the occult always leads to murder, or that murder is always a result of such involvement, but what this story lacks - for me - is some kind of spiritual element (even an allegorical one) that enables me to believe it. By believe it I don't mean that I was unable to suspend disbelief. I mean that I didn't believe its message was true in the spiritual sense.

Peter Bradshaw in The Guardian predictably raved about the film, saying it examined "unpalatable truths" about parenting. Unpalatable yes, but truths? For me the truth about parenting is summed up in the Bible in Psalm 127: "Behold, children are a heritage from the Lord, the fruit of the womb is a reward." If children are rewards from God then clearly there will be spiritual forces at work that are out to destroy them (John chapter 10). What happened in places like Columbine confirms this, and that is why Christian parents have an obligation to train children (Proverbs chapter 22) to protect them from the influence of evil.

All things considered, I think I hated We need to talk about Kevin because it overlooks these spiritual factors and therefore fails to offer any insight into the tragedy. I don't have a problem with the bleak subject matter, nor do I necessarily expect glib or pat answers, but if you're going to take me on such a dark journey I at least want the right questions to be asked.