Blank Check with Griffin & David We Need To Talk About Kevin with Jia Tolentino
Feb 8, 2026
Jia Tolentino, New Yorker staff writer known for sharp cultural criticism, joins to unpack Lynne Ramsay’s We Need To Talk About Kevin. They dig into Ramsay’s image-first, impressionistic filmmaking. Short takes on casting choices, Tilda Swinton’s performance, the film’s punishing visual style, and how it reframes motherhood anxiety and memory.
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Plane Rewatch Research Ritual
- Jia Tolentino read the We Need To Talk About Kevin novel on a plane and immediately rewatched Lynne Ramsay's film start-to-finish for research.
- She felt self-conscious watching such a punishing movie in close quarters like an airplane seat.
A Film Of Parental Anxiety
- Ramsay often frames her films around childhood and innocence rather than straightforward parenthood or crime narratives.
- We Need To Talk About Kevin reads more like an anxiety meditation on becoming a parent than a procedural about a school massacre.
Avoiding Celebrity Noise During Research
- Jia Tolentino deliberately avoided learning about Ezra Miller's later controversies while researching the film to keep the performance separate.
- She prefers to treat celebrity legal drama as "none of my business" when it doesn't inform her critique of the work.
