Kevin Hakkında Konuşmalıyız (We Need to Talk About Kevin, Lynne Ramsay, 2011) filmi bir annenin oğlunun işlediği toplu cinayetlerin ardından olayları kendi zihinselliğinden yeniden değerlendirmesi üzerine temellenmiştir. Toplum tarafından dışlanan ve itibarını kaybeden Eva, oğlu Kevin’ın yıkıcı davranışlarında kendi annelik rolünün etkisi olup olmadığını sorgulamaya başlamıştır. Kadına verilen klasik toplumsal rollerin anlamsızlığına inanan Eva için evliliği ve hamileliği, kaybettiği özgürlüğünü hatırlatan ve onu öfkelendiren yaşamsal olgulardan daha fazlası değildir. Doğduğu ilk günden itibaren annesinin arzu nesnesi olamadığını fark eden Kevin ise Eva’nın bakış alanındaki tüm nesne ve kişileri büyük bir dikkatle takip etmekte, arzu nesnesi olabileceğini düşündüklerini ise yıkarak yok etmektedir. Kevin kendisini arzulamayan annesinin arzu nesnelerini teker teker elinden alarak Eva’yı hem cezalandırmakta hem de onu oğluna bir kez olsun bakmaya zorlamaktadır. Kevin’ın hapiste geçirdiği iki yıl boyunca oğluyla kuramadığı anne-çocuk bağını gözden geçiren Eva şeytan olarak nitelendirdiği oğlunun ‘bir bütün olma’ arzusunun farkına en sonunda varabilmiştir. Annesiyle kuramadığı ilk bağı kurmak adına karşısına çıkan her nesneyi yıkan Kevin ise hapishanede kendisinden daha güçlü ötekilerin şiddetine maruz kaldığında yasanın varlığını kabul edebilmiş, kendi korunma ihtiyacının belki de ilk kez farkına varmıştır.

“We Need to Talk About Kevin”, which was adapted from Lionel Shriver’s original novel, is a movie depicting a troubled mother-son relationship. The mother, Eva, tried consistently to reach the imaginary phallus through displaying masculinity associated features in order to fulfill her perceived lack. She had an androgynous appearance, behaved competitively in so-called men’s world, and had a prestigious job and a respectable career position. When Eva has to face with the roles of motherhood and marriage, she became profoundly frustrated. She has lost her freedom and independence after becoming a mother. In fact, her son, Kevin, seems to symbolize the loss of phallus for her as a result of which she did not see Kevin as an object of desire. Kevin, realizing his mother’s disappointment by his own birth, started to follow her mother’s possible object of desires beginning from his early childhood. Kevin was aware of the fact that his father, Franklin, was also not the symbolic phallus for Eva because Eva seemed not to obey his authority. Due to Franklin’s passive personality and Eva’s disregarding of her husband, the second other (the father) did not interfere with this destructive mother-son relationship. Consequently, Kevin’s superego remained underdeveloped and he behaved completely under the control of his violent urges in order to obtain his mother’s attention. Kevin realized that prestige, power, freedom and his sister were the objects getting his mother’s attention and love. He spent all of his energy to destroy every possible desire object of Eva. He killed Franklin, his sister, his peers and school teachers only leaving Eva alive. After her son’s murders, Eva had lost everything signifying phallus and had too much time to analyze her relationship with Kevin. After a two year period, she recognized that her son was not a pure evil, but rather just a child craving desperately for his mother’s love. She also realized that it was Eva who contributed to the emergence of evilness in Kevin. Kevin, in the meantime, experienced castration anxiety in jail since he encountered with others who are stronger than him, in other words, who had the symbolic phallus. By the interference of second others, Kevin finally started to experience anxiety and choose to identify with the ones who had symbolic phallus, other than his mother.