Take Shelter

I hear it so much now. Our national discourse is rich with portent. "It's going to get worse before it gets better", "Something horrible is coming, you'll see", "Soon there will be riots". I'm told these things at conventions and while talking to my neighbors and at breakfast with my mother's old friends. Now Jeff Nichols takes an exhausted phrase in storytelling, ("There's a storm coming") and crafts out of it the movie of the moment. A dark, symbolic mapping of the last five years of the middle-class American experience that's bursting at the mental and financial seams. I have yet to see a finer artistic expression of the current existential crises we face. Michael Shannon is the Noah of our hour, plagued with calamitous visions and barely bearing up under the weight of constant anxiety. In fact, the whole endeavor is buried in quiet distress and prescience. And when the movie finally finds the heart to redeem it's long suffering protagonist, it is through the worst of all possible outcomes. Essential viewing for our times.

In "Take shelter" Curtis La Forche (Michael Shannon) is afraid of a devastating storm. Soon this fear dominates his life and he decides to make an underground shelter in his backyard.

"Take shelter" is about fear but it is also about the apocalyps.

The apocalyps takes in this film the form of a devastating storm. It's a storm of biblical proportions, but less religious spectators maybe inclined to make a connection with global warming. Apparently each time has it's own image of what Armageddon is like, because in the 80's of the last century I'm quite shure the film would be about a nuclear Holocaust.

Whatever the form the apocalyps takes, the remedy is more stable: an underground shelter. Watch for example the video clip Donald Fagen made for his 80's hit "New frontier".

"Takes shelter" is also a film about fear, just like for example "Cleo, from 5 to 7" (1962, Agnes Varda), in which the lead character is afraid of having an incurable illness. In both films the clues indicating whether the fear is justified or not are mixed.

Justified or not, for sure the fear in "Take shelter" is not functional. At first it puts the main character in social isolation and (in an ironic twist of fate) when his fear may materialise his shelter is way out of reach.

The social context of the film is firmly American. When the lead character loses his job during the film, he also loses his health insurence. For a family with a disabled child this is nothing less than a disaster. Something similar happened in "The insider" (1999, Michael Mann).

Take Shelter is an intelligent, thought provoking, nicely shot film featuring an excellent performance by Michael Shannon (an Oscar nomination, surely?), who was also great in director Nichols' previous/first film, Shotgun Stories. The film explores the line between fear and paranoia, or objectivity and subjectivity, as it's protagonist - a blue-collar family man of few words - wrestles with apocalyptic dreams and visions of a strange, possibly supernatural storm, responding to them as best he can as both literal warnings AND possible signs of mental illness. The film has a brooding, at times Hitchcockian atmosphere and a very timely feel to it (think financial and environmental disasters). Set in a rural community, we have plenty of lovely wide shots of the land- and sky-scape (also a strong element of Shotgun Stories) with some added CGI on the latter for the dream/visions. Shannon's performance constitutes at least 50% of this films worth but the rest of the cast are good too. It's a slow mover and, at around two hours and fifteen minutes, perhaps a bit too long. My wife and I did have a few criticisms after watching it (at the Sydney Film Festival), but I wouldn't want to discourage anyone from seeing this film, which will no doubt be a hot topic and bring Nichols deserved recognition when it goes on general release (September 30 2011 in US)

Take Shelter is a brooding, psychological thriller that does a wonderful job of generating foreboding and unease, while hinting at bigger thematic questions.

Curtis is in construction, a steady guy in a steady job taking care of his family. His mate Dewart tells him, kindly and a little enviously, that he has a good life. That comment comes just as nightmares creep into the daytime for Curtis and the pressures of the possible descent of mental illness, and impending catastrophe, seep into his being. He makes the decision to tell no one but medical professionals. He needs help. But that does not mean his fears are unfounded.

Michael Shannon is superb as mad-or-is-he? Curtis. When he gives voice to his darkest fears in a very public forum, he is the definition of unhinged. Jessica Chastain plays his put-upon wife Samantha, and gets to test her range in a nightmare sequence where she is tempted by a breadknife and the sight of her husband's exposed neck. The look on her face had me pushing back in my seat.

The film opens with big, brooding questions. Is Curtis somehow psychic? Is the approaching doom related to their daughter's illness? Does the ever-present threat of economic ruin somehow inform these impending cataclysmic events? Horror film tropes are employed in the nightmare sequences, as Curtis wakes up just as he is attacked. This becomes slightly predictable at the third dream, and the film sags slightly in the second act. The two-hours plus running time is a tad flabby. But Shannon is commanding, the cinematography eerily beautiful, and the ending deliciously straightforward and ambiguous.

We live in uncertain times. Those who carry on blindly and trust it will be okay may be the maddest of us all. Take Shelter shows one man unravelling, and resonates with all our contemporary worries. Highly recommended.

The family man and construction worker Curtis LaForche (Michael Shannon) is happily married with Samantha (Jessica Chastain) and they have a beloved deaf daughter, Hannah (Tova Stewart). Curtis works with his friend Dewart (Shea Whigham) in his team and his mother Sarah (Kathy Baker) has been interned in a clinic since she was thirty years old with paranoid schizophrenia.

Out of the blue, Curtis has nightmares and visions of an apocalyptic storm and he becomes obsessed to build a well equipped storm shelter for his family and him in his backyard. Curtis spends the family savings and gets a loan from the bank to prepare the shelter. His obsession affects his work and his relationship with the locals and Curtis loses his job. Does Curtis have a premonition or is he losing his sanity?

"Take Shelter" is an original drama developed in slow pace with magnificent performances. The screenplay is very well written and despite the running time of 120 minutes, the movie keeps the attention of the viewer until the very last ironic scene. My vote is eight.

Title (Brazil): "O Abrigo" ("The Shelter")

Note: On 21 August 2024. I saw this film again.