Critics buzzed about “We Need to Talk About Kevin” after it opened at the Cannes Film Festival this year, but it’s turned out to be less than the sum of its parts. Owen Gleiberman of Entertainment Weekly magazine filed the following review.

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“We Need to Talk About Kevin” is an exploitation film posing as an art film. The movie was all the rage this year at the Cannes Film Festival, but now that it’s finally opened, it turns out to be a kind of stacked-deck psychological horror movie. It’s watchable, but in an over-deliberate way that you can’t take very seriously.

It’s all about a suburban mom played by Tilda Swinton who, along with her wimpy husband John C. Reilly, raises a son named Kevin, who grows up into a monster—a taunting teen sociopath with a violent chip on his shoulder. The older Kevin is played by Ezra Miller, who sneers like the androgynous cousin of Adrian Grenier and is easily the best thing in the movie.

Kevin perpetrates a school massacre, but anyone looking for insight into, say, the minds of the Columbine killers won't find it in “We Need to Talk About Kevin.” The movie is creepy, with random little art touches, yet it has no texture or depth. It's like “The Omen” directed by Miranda July.

Tilda Swinton has gotten a lot of praise for her performance, and there’s no denying that she acts with her usual icy, precise, somewhat detached skill. I have often liked Swinton as an actress, yet watching her play a suburban mother in “We Need to Talk About Kevin” is a curious thing. She’s so forbiddingly severe that the film's cautionary message seems to be “Beware, everyone! This is what can happen… if Tilda Swinton is your mom.”