We Need To Talk About Kevin is impressive from the get go, from its bold, expressionistic use of color to its temporal fluidity. (Has any film ever relied so much on an actor’s hair style for narrative comprehensibility?) Tilda Swinton, in nearly every scene, is captivating as a strong-willed woman whose life is upended by her dark offspring.

Unfortunately, director Lynne Ramsay’s spell over me was broken when it came time to talk to Kevin. Played at different ages by Jasper Newell and Ezra Miller, Kevin is such an obvious, cliched “bad seed” that the movie threatens to tip from serious drama to total kitsch.

The camera clearly loves Swinton, though I am hard pressed to think of a performance in which she elects to reflect it back. Crucially, I wish they had cast as her clueless husband someone who could match her intensity. Pairing John C. Reilly with Tilda Swinton is a bit like putting a beer jingle up against a Mahler symphony. I like to imagine John C. Reilly and George Clooney swapping roles in Kevin and The Descendants. In my mind (and perhaps in only in my mind), the switch betters both.