Textual Analysis

The reason of my textual analysis is to study the representation of parenthood in We Need To Talk About Kevin and Juno. In both films I will study how the parents nurture their child and how this will have an effect on their future or whether their relationship with their child has already suffered. In Juno, the story shows us the struggles that Juno MacGuff goes through to ensure that  her unborn child has a good future. At the beginning of the film, she believes that a couple would be the best for her unborn baby, but when the couples relationship becomes unsteady, she questions relationships and what makes a family. For example, before she comes to this decision she talks to her father, who tells her that she should find a person who likes her for exactly who she is, which is referring to when Juno questions her relationship with Paulie Bleeker. Near to the end of the film, Juno gives birth and makes the difficult decision to still give away her baby even though the couple has separated. This could show how Juno realises that her baby might have a better future with a mother who is single than two teenage parents. The decision could also help Juno have a better future as her and Paulie are able to continue with education rather than starting of their life as young parents. The baby's adoptive parent shows that even though she is now single, she can still provide love and care for the baby. 

In comparison to this, Eva in We Need To Talk About Kevin struggles to be alone with Kevin and that without her husband and Kevin's father, Franklin, she wouldn't be able to raise him on her own. However, in some scenes it shows that Eva stills loves and cares for Kevin because that is her stereotypical role of the mother, but the film plays on the idea of unconditional love.                  

The film Juno plays on the idea that there can never be a prefect relationship and there  is always struggle. Ellen Page, who plays Juno MacGuff in the film Juno, portrays a teenager in the stages of her unplanned pregnancy. The style in Juno is similar to We Need To Talk About Kevin because they have both clever and quick dialogue. Juno is shown as a struggling teenager who forms a bond with her unborn that leads to difficult decisions later. This could relate to We Need To Talk About Kevin because Kevin could be because of the relationship between him and his mother. In Juno, she faces the fact that giving her children up for adoption would result in changing her child's life and breaking the bond between her and her child.

The main point to question in We Need To Talk About Kevin is whether the result of Kevin is because he was naturally a born sociopath or whether it was result of bad parenthood from the mother Eva, played by Tilda Swinton. I think this is what the film is trying to get across in the film as they mainly focus on the relationship between the mother and son, this is because they want to show the struggle that Eva has to go through. The father, Franklin, doesn't seem to get blamed for the outcome of Kevin because throughout his son's childhood he seemed ignorant of Kevin's chilling actions that results in a mutual hate with Eva, the mother.

In conclusion, I found out that both films play on the idea of relationship between a mother and child, however, the film Juno plays on the struggles during pregnancy, and the film We Need To Talk About Kevin talks about the struggles after pregnancy. Juno and Evie both show that their bond with their child is unexplainable because it is unique between them and their child.