I'm not exactly sure what to make of your complaints, CR, but then I didn't like it the first time I watched it.
That's probably because I was trying to be less vocal in my review this time. So I ended up not being real direct in my review.
Maybe this will explain: I didn't like
We Need to Talk About Kevin, as it felt to me like it had nothing much to offer in the way of story narrative or character arch or anything substantial , other than some fancy editing room tricks. Without the clever use of editing in climax reaction scenes out of sequences in the beginning of the film and some moody static shots, I don't think the guts of the story had much to say in the way of story narrative or character arch...nor did it evoke any philosophical, existential type response from me. I mean we don't really see any of the
whys, hows, of Kevin being like he is. Nothing in the family relationship dynamics is explored. It felt like a pretty sparse film that was jazzed up with editing tricks like...
The symbolic shots of the tomato festival or the microorganisms, which felt tacked on in lieu of any deeper material that the film maker had shot.
Other shots like the closeup of Kevin putting a peeled litchi nut into his mouth, which looked like an eyeball, after the Drano incident, seemed obvious. Yeah I get what the director was going for but the shot felt contrived, like something from a TV movie.
One shot that really felt amateurish was the cigarette butt into the cake at the Christmas office party. I get that those two things don't go together so create an uncomfortable visual. But it does nothing for the story and could have done better like this:
The Christmas party scene goes as shot but we see Eva smoking, we then get the same type of closeup static shot of the cigarette butt into the cake, only it's in a
piece of uneaten cake on a small plate. The next shot is a wide angle of Eva leaving and we can see the cigarette butt smoldering in the
piece of cake next to the empty chair where she was setting.
That would be an example of using a static shot to say something about the character and the scene.
I could go on, but I'll just finish by saying the movie didn't work for me. I didn't care or believe in the family I saw on the screen.