Kevin has R.A.D - We Need to Talk About Kevin (2011) Discussion

[–] zombiesushi 10 years ago

I agree:)If you're interested Child of Rage is available for free on youtube. (( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g2-Re_Fl_L4 )) Its only about 30 minutes long if I remember right but I totally recommend it. Just be warned, its very good but heartbreaking and hard to watch at certain points.

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[–] Arien_78 10 years ago

WTF are you talking about? She interacted with him plenty the way she should have. Her holding him away from her while he is crying is what a LOT of parents do, trying to bounce their kids a bit to try and calm them. She was holding him, lots of parents just put the baby in the Graco baby swing. One does not have to hold their child close to them while it is crying to soothe him or her. Then there are parents who put the kid in the car seat and drive around instead of holding their kid. She tried every scene to bond with him, and he refused. He is psychotic.

A child with reactive attachment disorder is typically neglected, abused or orphaned. Reactive attachment disorder develops because the child's basic needs for comfort, affection and nurturing aren't met and loving, caring attachments with others are never established.

His father loved him plenty, although he was in denial that there was something wrong with Kevin.

Reactive attachment disorder is a lifelong condition, but with treatment children can develop more stable and healthy relationships with caregivers and others. Safe and proven treatments for reactive attachment disorder include psychological counseling and parent or caregiver education.

Kevin is a sociopath/psychopath. No amount of therapy or counseling is going to help him get better.

Reactive attachment disorder begins before age 5. Signs and symptoms of the disorder may begin when the child is still an infant.

Signs and symptoms in babies may include:

Withdrawn, sad and listless appearance
Failure to smile
Lack of the normal tendency to follow others in the room with the eyes
Failure to reach out when picked up
No interest in playing peekaboo or other interactive games
No interest in playing with toys
Engaging in self-soothing behavior, such as rocking or self-stroking
Calm when left alone
Signs and symptoms in toddlers, older children and adolescents may include:

Withdrawing from others
Avoiding or dismissing comforting comments or gestures
Acting aggressively toward peers
Watching others closely but not engaging in social interaction
Failing to ask for support or assistance
Obvious and consistent awkwardness or discomfort
Masking feelings of anger or distress
Alcohol or drug abuse in adolescents
As children with reactive attachment disorder grow older, they may develop either inhibited or disinhibited behavior patterns. While some children have signs and symptoms of just one type of behavior, many exhibit both types.

Inhibited behavior. Children with inhibited behavior shun relationships and attachments to virtually everyone. This may happen when a baby never has the chance to develop an attachment to any caregiver.
Disinhibited behavior. Children with disinhibited behavior seek attention from virtually everyone, including strangers. This may happen when a baby has multiple caregivers or frequent changes in caregivers. Children with this type of reactive attachment disorder may frequently ask for help doing tasks, have inappropriately childish behavior or appear anxious.

Kevin fits NOTHING on this list.

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[–] always_keep_fighting 10 years ago

I agree completely. Eva knew there was something wrong with Kevin. Had her husband, the doctor, or the therapist she saw believed her, that whole horrible massacre might have been prevented. At the very least, they would have known that he needed watching.
The scene where she is forcing herself to smile at the screaming baby, trying to engage him in play or to accept comfort from her shows that she tried. He was not neglected at all.

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[–] SheLeppie 10 years ago

Agreed. This was psychopathy, which is a genetic disorder and a type of brain damage (lack of neurological activity in the emotional centres of the brain). Kevin was born with it, and it would not have mattered who parented him; it would have manifested one way or another. With lots of intervention and help, the child could have been influenced in his behaviour, but so far, there is no treatment available to reverse psychopathy in the brain.

I have known plenty of parents with babies who will not stop crying, and until you have experienced that for yourself, you have no idea how you will react to it (very easy to sit in judgement of parents who have to cope with it). The mother had her issues, but she did her best.

The child in 'Child of Rage' came from severe abuse and neglect from infancy. You can hardly say that the mother in 'Kevin' severely sexually and violently abused and neglected her son. Without intervention, that child would likely have grown up with sociopathic tendencies, but she was saved because her disorder was based on nurture, not nature (and they intervened when she was still a child).

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[–] jcarpenter-1 10 years ago

That's quite a mouthful from someone who gave It's Alive a 10.

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[–] kaylynn36 9 years ago

LOL!!!

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[–] puplover 10 years ago

Hate to break it to you Arien78 but Kevin had EVERYTHING on that list. It's in the book.

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[–] Arien_78 10 years ago

Hate to break it to you, but you are missing the point. She did EVERYTHING to care for him. She tried all the way to him being in prison to connect with him. He is not a product of neglect and abuse, he is just a friggin psychopath.

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[–] ficoce 9 years ago

Oh no, you missed out on this movie!

Kevin and his mother had a special loving relationship all his life. Being a sociopath, Kevin could never open up to anyone and would manipulate everyone in his life - except Mom. He showed his mother love the only way a sociopath with little sense of conscience could.

So many examples. When he destroyed Mom's map wallpaper, he was trying to help. When he shoved his sisters hamster, or whatever, down the garbage disposal and saw his mom trying to fix it by pouring drain cleaner he looks guilty; sociopaths don't feel guilt. But he feels bad for his mom though. He says he's sorry to her the only way he knows how; he blinds his sister with the same drain cleaner in much the same way a normal kid might leave a flower on Mom's pillow for that little extra special private gesture that says, "I'm sorry."

His mother loved Kevin as much as she could, and she knew he loved her. She first knew after he covered for her when she threw him against the wall, breaking his arm. He would bring up this special moment by picking at the scar, not to rub her face into it, but the opposite - almost as a pleading gesture. His mom takes him out for mini golf and dinner? He thanks her by setting her up to search his room, so she can find the virus CD that says, "I Love You", and destroys her pc and every other pc it's connected to.

Kevin is a highly intelligent sociopath that can't show his mother the kind of love he knows she wants. The last scene in the movie she finally breaks through by not giving a rip what happens to him when he goes to bromance prison; using Kevin's own language to say, "I Love You". This so touched Kevin that he finally breaks down and allows his mom to embrace him. Guard speaks - The End.

This movie is hard to follow, because it's natural to want to see the best in people by using normal people as a reference. Thinking, Kevin is normal and looking for the outside influences that make him strange isn't the way to do it. Watch it again, expecting Kevin to do just the opposite what a normal kid would do. It's a great movie.

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[–] Arien_78 9 years ago

What the hell are you talking about? Try make sure you replying to the right person.

http://www.facebook.com/ainoakeolakauilani

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[–] ficoce 9 years ago

Oops, sorry - no need to go all psycho on me. Err...should I take it as a compliment?

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[–] zzizek 9 years ago

It's amazing how many love you were able to see in his acts. :)

I agree about the diagnosis, but for a tottaly diferent reasons. First of all, not every character can be diagnosed because there may not be such a character - it's made up from a man's fantasy. And secondly, even if we try to put him a label such as psychopath or sociopath, it is by no chance one would become a character like that by parenting we witnessed. Although disorder may be genetic, personality still build ups from how one gets treated, and he was basicly treated with such a patience and unconditional love that practicly doesn't exist in reality ... so there is like no posibility he would be able to become such a person. Things doesn't add up, and that is a bit dissapointing ... he just IS like that. But still, I like the movie anyway, it really consumed me.

He said the maps were stupid, he didn't like them, and afterwards we see him ruining them. How exactly did he (try to) help her?

After killing the hamster, he has just the same flat face mimic as in all other situations. And because this mimic doesn't express anything, it is rather non-guilty, than guilty.

How was he "saying sorry" by blidning his sister?

I saw the scar picking (if you mean the one happening in the car) as a manipulation - in the contex, she was trying to convince him to let her do the shopping, but he interupted her by pointing at a scar and she imediatly stopped and said "OK, let's go home".

How do you know about other laptops/PC's? I only saw it destroyed hers ... and then again, I think he knew she loved him, but he was irritated/annoyed by that. He actualy hated her, it was obvious (but I as I said before, the reason "why" is really unexplainable by having recieved such a love) ... and because he hated her, and knew she loved him, the best thing to write on a CD is "I Love You" as this is the one that will be taken. And it was. And then this thing destroyed her computer because he hated her.

And the last scene ... they didn't talk when she visited him before, so it was all the same - he didn't felt guilty, as he never did, and she resented him, which is obvious after such a tragedy. After he continued not to talk with her even after he done something like that, she was starting to withdrawal from him. And then lastly he changed and said something, which I interpreted as "I know that I killed them to make you misarble, but now I may be feeling something else, something new (remorse)".

Your views really are amazing. First I thought of sarcasm, but then it looked to serious and intelegent, too, so those are some kind of abstract views that on the other hand make me feel really stupid if this is the way movie is to be understood. :S :)

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[–] ficoce 9 years ago

You're looking at a Sociopath from a rational point of view. They aren't normally rational. I think we can both agree a sociopath has a lack of positive emotion and is without remorse - they could care less what people think about them. They enjoy the pain of other and themselves. When Kevin would respond to his father, or anyone else for that matter, he was guarding his true emotions by trying to act like a normal person - he was not. He was guarding his condition.

But he could be himself with his mother, which was a pretty sick twisted bastard. Most of the time this showed up with a look of apathy on the verge of hatred, and the more his mother showed normal love, the worse he got. Now with a normal person this would look like hate, but Kevin was just doing what felt like love, to him. It was really brilliant the way they played this.

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[–] KomikBookGeek 7 years ago

Just a quick comment - Eva says he destroyed all the computers/laptops at work. The CD had a virus on it, it spread from her laptop to the work ones from the private network.

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[–] dixiedragon 7 years ago

How on earth did you reach those conclusions from this movie? Kevin never showed even marginal affection for anyone. Every single act of his that might have been construed as love, when taken in context was merely a method of manipulating others ... usually his dad to manipulate his mother and even vice versa, when his mother was reading to him and he called her Mom ... he then seized the opportunity to rebuke his dad by declaring that he wanted mom to read to him.

How you got that he loved his mother the only way he knew how is a puzzlement to me ... the wallpaper ... he told his dad he was trying to help his mother manipulating his dad to take his side and turn on his wife ... he already thought she was making too much of Kevin's bad behavior, he didn't believe a word she said about how bad it was even from the time he was an infant wailing all day long. Kevin resented his mother's love of travel as much as he resented her. He knew how pleased she was with the wallpaper she created and made it a point to tell her the maps were stupid and he didn't like them. He then took that few minutes she was on the phone to put her in her place .. then nonchalantly laid across the desk just taunting her to say something bad to him, to scold or chastise him or get any negative reaction out of her all the while KNOWING how hard she was trying to break through to him...

No he hated his mother and that hatred was the reason he killed his dad and his sister. He walking in on them having sex, he listened to them giggle and roll around on the sofa, he watched his mom read to his sister, hold her, show affection toward her therefore he knew the best most powerful way to make her pay for loving them was to kill them.

The scar he was "picking" at he was for all practical purposes POINTING to it to remind his mother that she was responsible for the scar so she would go straight home instead of stopping at the store. Remember, she asked him is it okay if we stop by the store on the way home and he said no he wanted to go home... She then tried gently begging by saying it won't take but a minute and she saw him pointing to, picking at the scar, fell for his trick by feeling guilty for what she'd done tossing him and breaking his arm so she gave in and said okay home it is.

The CD? it had nothing at all to do with love... he simply knew that if his mother searched his room, her obvious love for him would manipulate her into taking the I Love You disk and seeing what was on it and he knew that the second she loaded it her computer would be wiped by his virus ... it was his way of HURTING her not LOVING her.

He killed his sister's pet because he knew she loved the hamster, she talked to it, played with it and found joy in it ... joy, something Kevin himself was never able to even feel but for him the BEST part was being able to use the dead hamster to hurt his mother -- he was outside watching her, just WAITING tick tock tick tock so he could see her reaction ... I think that when she FAILED to react, he decided to get the drano out so his sister could get into it knowing that if he hurt his sister he would also hurt his mother ... I am still unclear on how or why she picked up the drano and used it ... and was the other lady there in the waiting room involved? was she a playmate of the daughter's? just not sure. Intentionally harming his sister was in NO WAY an apology ... he would have to feel remorse to say I'm sorry and he was incapable of feeling remorse.

As I read your post I thought maybe you were being sarcastic but you really believe he was good? that he was sorry for the things he did. No I don't think so ... and that hug at the end? He had already asked his mother do you know what goes on in those places -- referring to the adult penitentiary he was being transferred to when he turned 18, trying to throw the blame on her and make her feel guilty for his crimes ... but she wasn't biting and reached out to him again showing us how truly unconditional a mother's love can be.

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[–] whoiamnow 9 years ago

She went through the motions but the sincerity was lacking. The way she bonded with her daughter, that was genuine.

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[–] Gabe1972 10 years ago

Definitely. She tried as much as is humanly possible to connect with him. He was just plain messed up. It didn't have anything to do with anything she did or didn't do. Perhaps he was possessed by Pazuzu. LOL. J/K.

The plural of mouse is mice. The plural of goose is geese. Why is the plural of moose not meese?

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[–] dixiedragon 7 years ago

I agree ... I question some of the symptoms you listed though ... I've worked with infants and toddlers with some of these disorders and I don't think toddlers and young children with RAD act aggressively - I've only known them to have NO reaction toward peers - it's like they have a glass wall around them nothing gets in and nothing breaches that wall going out. The older they get without a diagnosis or treatment they can become untouchable, raging or shrieking with fear when someone tries to hold or hug them. This happens when they never get a response to their longing, their desire to held and caressed is consistently ignored which is why hospitals are always looking for volunteers to rock infants, FASD and crack babies - if they are not held and handled gently with love, when feeding, diaper changes, bathing, etc. you can almost always add attachment disorder to their issues. They also don't mask feelings - they simply don't HAVE feelings of anger or distress ... they appear borderline catatonic never making eye contact, they don't smile or laugh, they are 100% alone in a crowded room. It's very treatable in infants and in infants, it can be a result of crack addiction or fetal alcohol syndrome disorder. Regardless, Kevin was far from detached, he made it his mission to inflict pain and harm on his mother in particular, then on his sister and later plotted and planned his attack on his peers as seen by ordering the yellow locks. RAD kids appear to not even care enough about anyone around them to even use the energy to punish them. They are listless, often rock back and forth, side to side

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[–] Gabe1972 10 years ago

dodo? The bird?

The plural of mouse is mice. The plural of goose is geese. Why is the plural of moose not meese?

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[–] Guernicaman 9 years ago

More of a psychopath than a sociopath, although RAD could be a possible diagnosis.

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[–] AmyJolamb 9 years ago

I completely disagree. He does not have R.A.D. I have an adopted family member with it.

This is just a movie about a "bad seed". He was born this way.

The mother tried her best to interact with him and the movie shows this. Plus he acted totally normal with his dad or almost normal.

R.A.D. comes from severe abuse usually sexual or physical but also includes major neglect. My adopted family member who has this was left in her crib alone for so long her head didn't grow correctly. She had almost no contact in her very early years as a baby. Bottles were shoved at her to shut her up and she would wear the same diaper for days. It was horrible neglect that she suffered until she was almost 6. She lives the best she can but clearly she still has major mental issues with chronic lying and sadly abusing her own kids.

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[–] Chara_Angel 8 years ago

I'm thinking that too. Maybe nature has something to do with it- for instance, maybe he would have always been a strong willed child. But put with a mother who is emotionally cold/neglectful probably had a hand in creating what happened later.

There were just so many times in the story, I wish they both would have gotten help.

Little girls shouldn't look for four leaf clovers!

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