Take Shelter (2011)

I should have known better than to pigeonhole Michael Shannon. I’ve seen him in a number of films at this point (including his work on TV’s Boardwalk Empire), and I thought I had him pegged. When I heard he played a man driven to madness by his fears of an impending apocalypse in Jeff Nichols’ Take Shelter, I figured we’d see plenty wrath-of-God speeches coming from his mouth amidst an onslaught of bodily tics. That’s not to diminish his previous work – he’s a great actor – but his role in Take Shelter sounded like such ‘a Michael Shannon role’. I didn’t want him to wind up in a typecast box from which he couldn’t later escape. This film proves there is no box the man can get stuck in.

What I thought would be a man-goes-crazy ‘end of days’ thriller turned out to be a thoughtful, heartbreaking movie about mental illness, and Shannon gives an understated, haunting performance as a man tormented by hallucinations. Despite the love of a good woman (Jessica Chastain), and a beautiful young daughter (Tova Stewart), Curtis LaForche (Shannon) can’t shake the feeling that a storm of Biblical proportions is coming. Knowing full well that schizophrenia runs in his family, he seeks medical help for his increasingly violent visions. But although he has the presence of mind at first to acknowledge that he might be losing his mind, the fact that he is losing his mind means he will eventually succumb to his obsessions. Against all good advice, he pours his family money into the building of a storm shelter in their backyard, preparing for a reckoning.

He’s a sympathetic man, often apologetic for his actions and ashamed of his increasing madness; it’s a nice contrast to the typical depiction of people driven to this level of insanity, especially in this post-“rapture” age we now live in. The film has a moving, perfect climax. The final scene, however, I’m not sure I like. It raises some interesting questions about the line between crackpots and prophets, but seeks to undo the focus on mental illness that came before. Still, Shannon gives one of the best performances of the year, in a film that manages both white-knuckle intensity and tender drama. Watch it as a double feature with Roman Polanski’s Repulsion.

3.5/5

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Writer/director Jeff Nichols’ sophomore film, Take Shelter, is a slow-burn mix of family drama and thriller driven by the mental breakdown of its lead, Curtis LaForche (Michael Shannon). Fully aware schizophrenia runs in his family, Curtis begins having hallucinations and fears he’ll end up in a group home like his mother. The apocalyptic visions begin in his dreams and slowly seep into everyday life. Curtis attempts to hide his dreams from his wife Samantha (Jessica Chastain), his daughter, and the close-knit community they live in; but when his paranoia about a coming storm of unseen proportions gets out of control, he sinks all of their money into a tornado shelter and puts both his job and family at risk.

Take Shelter is an interesting exploration of mental illness (and the prominence of disastrous weather conditions proving to be popular this year, with Lars von Trier’s Melancholia exploring similar ground). Nichols throws us into the deep end initially, making us question what is real and what is imagined; the hallucinations come thick and fast before the film plateaus in the middle. Thankfully, Nichols knows when to amp up the intensity again and the film’s climax, while questionable, certainly has you on the edge of your seat.

Michael Shannon delivers a solid, controlled performance as a man battling his own mind. Chastain proves she’s an actress to keep an eye on, after her performance in Terrence Malick’s The Tree of Life, and here as a strained wife trying to support her husband. What impresses most about the film is the control between such opposing ideas; on the one hand you have these vivid hallucinations expertly created by a visual effects team, and on the other you have a devastating intimate portrait of a family in crisis, acted with no tone of melodrama but rather realism.

Take Shelter is an arresting and through provoking film that makes you question the fine line we all walk every day between having everything and losing it all.

4/5