Movies Reviews

Take Shelter – Movie Review

By Anne Brodie Sep 29, 2011, 14:58 GMT

Plagued by a series of apocalyptic visions, a young husband and father questions whether to shelter his family from a coming storm, or from himself. ...more

Michael Shannon is mesmerizing.  He has such depth as an actor that he nearly hypnotizes: he owns the screen.  His is a rare gift.  Shannon has never been less than fierce in a role.

I first noticed him and that force in Shotgun Stories, one of the great indie films of the last few years.   Although he was restrained, power radiates from him and he commands the screen.  In Revolutionary Road he played madness in a way I’ve never seen an actor do it before, viscerally, realistically and unsympathetically.

Shannon visited madness again in Werner Herzog’s My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done, as a delusional misfit who ritually murders his mother.

Shannon re- teams with his Shotgun Stories writer director Jeff Nichols in Take Shelter, another chilling story of madness, centered on Curtis, an ordinary working man in its clutches.   He suffers from hallucinations of apocalyptic nature, anxiety, night terrors and seizures.  

The hallucinations take the form of the end days, as birds fall from the sky, rain turns to yellow oil, his house lurches in violent winds, and his dog attacks him.  None of it happened.  But Curtis has trouble sorting it out because he feels the dog’s bite all day.

He realises he’s not right and takes steps to help himself, but he thinks his case is so extreme that it’s not possible.  Curtis is becoming increasingly isolated; he won’t tell his wife Samantha what’s happening to him and he’s acting out in such a way that the town gossips notice. 

For a while his deaf young daughter keeps him on terra firma, he adores her and takes his responsibility seriously, but soon she’s part of his nightmares as well.   He also knows it’s entirely possible he has serious mental illness like his mother.

Curtis begins making a series of bad decisions while he’s in these altered states, like stealing heavy equipment from work to dig up the backyard and extend his underground shelter against the final storm he knows is coming.   He makes a mistake at work by having his friend, who knows he’s not well, removed from his crew, and things go from bad to worse. 

And he banishes the beloved family dog to the outdoors.  He seems to know these things are wrong, but can’t stop himself from doing them.  What’s really bothering him is the gathering storm, which he can’t fix.

Shannon is so strong in this challenging part that he overshadows the brilliant young actress Jessica Chastain who plays his wife.  And that’s saying something.   This film is all about Shannon’s performance.  The script is very good, but it requires just the right actor; someone to hold the screen and appear in nearly every frame, in extreme.

The direction is supple, sharp and well-paced.  The GCI weather and special effects are really stellar.   And the supporting players are all good, real characters, the kind of people you might expect to live in Curtis’ rural Ohio world.

But this is Michael Shannon’s film, period.

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35mm drama
Written and directed by Jeff Nichols
Opens Sept. 30
Runtime:
MPAA: R
Country: US
Language: English