RAVE: I Need To Talk About Tilda Swinton

Tilda Swinton in We Need To Talk About Kevin: I simply cannot remember the last time that a performance has so stunned and so haunted me.

There is a reason why this is the first time ever that I have dedicated a post on this blog to a film performance.



The acclaimed, unsettling novel by Lionel Shriver by the same name stands as one of my favourite books of recent years. The book shook me to the core. I found it utterly brilliant and utterly compelling.

Too often one hears about how a book beloved by many or critically acclaimed is made into a crass film that does it no justice or, worse still, a sub-par, cheapo made-for-TV hack job.

I didn't try to think too much about how the film version of We Need To Talk About Kevin would pan out on the big screen. A complex, tautly written book as devastating as that was always going to be difficult to transfer to that most wickedly capricious of all art forms, the movie. That much I knew.

Thankfully, this film adaptation by Lynne Ramsay is a true success.

But it really is all about Tilda Swinton's masterful performance.

I do remember being very comforted when hearing about a year or so ago that Tilda Swinton was to play the lead role of the mother, Eva Khatchadourian in the film adaptation of Shriver's novel.

I was right to be comforted in that knowledge. Tilda Swinton was superb.

I cannot recall a performance in which the subtlest flicker of the eyes or the hunching of shoulders or the twitch of a nerve in a cheek ever carried so much portent, so much gravitas, simply so much.

An imperfect character played perfectly.

Tilda Swinton's performance is beyond being the best of the year - it's simply one of the best ever. Period.

Her sublime, incredibly intelligent performance in this excellent film should be shown to all drama students and aspiring film actors. Forget the heavy emoting and the crying on tap, kids - this is how it's done.

Bravo, Tilda! I always knew you were one of a kind; one of the very, very best.