Ever come across a match of star, director and project so uncannily perfect it gives you chills just thinking about it? That’s how I’m feeling upon learning (belatedly, I admit) that Tilda Swinton has signed on to star in Lynne Ramsay’s long-delayed adaptation of the Lionel Shriver bestseller “We Need to Talk About Kevin.”

I’m not sure how it took the news so long to reach me (the NYT’s Carpetbagger blog reported this last month), given that “Kevin” has been my most anticipated cinematic endeavour — bar none — for several years now.

There are a number of reasons for this. Shriver’s extraordinary novel (for the uninformed, it’s an epistolary breakdown of the circumstances leading to a high school massacre, as told by the teenage killer’s guilt-ridden mother) hit me like a well-aimed punch in the gut three years ago and resonates with me still. And Ramsay utterly earned my devotion with her first two features, “Ratcatcher” (1999) and “Morvern Callar” (2002): the young Scot could have the most distinctive aesthetic sensibility of any British filmmaker currently working.

Meanwhile, the lead role is as complex and risky a challenge as any actress could hope to take on — a mother bereft of any maternal connection to her offspring from the outset, as candid as she is ultimately self-deluding, she both invites and repels empathy. Few actresses walk the line between fragility and opaqueness as intelligently as Swinton, and fewer still would be brave enough to take on such a defiantly unsympathetic part. This is a casting bullseye.

I remain both intrigued and concerned as to how the cinematic medium will cope with the novel’s audacious, intrinsically literary narration strategy, but if any director can pull off such a high-wire feat of storytelling, it’s Ramsay. She reportedly worked on the adaptation with “In the Bedroom” co-scribe Rob Festinger, while Jennifer Fox (”Michael Clayton”) is on board as producer.

I can’t say how thrilled I am to hear this project is moving forward after a lengthy stationary period; the seven years since Ramsay’s last big-screen outing have been long ones indeed. (Dare I suggest a male director might have found it easier to get projects off the ground?)

With all due respect to Peter Jackson and his admirers, I was crushed when her plans to direct “The Lovely Bones” fell through. Her muscular feminine touch and affinity for surreal domestic detail were beautifully suited to Alice Sebold’s source novel, just as these traits — combined with her streak of blacker-than-black humour, should stand her in good stead with “Kevin.”

I’m gushing, I know. Hell, we all have our favourites. (I’m not alone, either — Ramsay ranked #12 in a 2007 Guardian survey of the best directors at work today.) So while I’m in a celebratory mood, let’s take a look at the last filmed effort Ramsay graced us with — this lovely 2005 music video for Doves’ “Black and White Town” offers just the briefest taste of her gifts. “We Need to Talk About Kevin” can’t start shooting soon enough.

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