Joaquin Phoenix is in full beast mode in Lynn Ramsay’s “You were never really here,” a head-scratching drama whose action begins in Cincinnatti, curiously, and moves to New York City. Phoenix is muscular, wears a scowl for much of the film, a glint of evil in the stare. There’s a little bit of something for everyone in this film: a sexually-deviant governor, murders with a hammer, underage prostitutions, ghosts, PTSD and battle scars.

We Need to Talk About Kevin isn’t the first film this year to outlast its immediacy. A novel written by Lionel Shriver in the wake of the Columbine school killings, director Lynne Ramsay has been trying to make the film since her last feature, Morvern Callar, in 2002. The unusually long gestation period has stripped the story of its ripped-from-the-headlines quality. It now plays like a quaint, violent memory. These are the under-parented demon children of not so long ago