Film Review: Take Shelter
written & directed by Jeff Nichols
released: January 24, 2011
length: 2 hours
written & directed by Jeff Nichols
released: January 24, 2011
length: 2 hours
"I'm afraid that something might be coming. Something that's...not right. I cannot describe it. I just need you to believe me."
Recently I was exposed to the relatively new film Mud, a modern Southern Gothic tale starring Matthew McConaughey and written and directed by one Jeff Nichols. In short, the movie knocked my socks off--so much so, that I felt compelled to look up Jeff Nichols with the intention of feasting on his whole oeuvre. Sadly, he had only produced one other full-length film, but I immediately decided I was going to check it out. Having, just now finished watching it, I'm glad I did.
Halfway through the tense psychological drama Take Shelter's runtime, protagonist Curtis La Forche delivers the film's thesis statement, quoted above, to his weary and uncomprehending wife Samantha. Nichols takes Curtis' feeling of nameless dread and uses it as the engine that drives the film's plot forward. It's not a scary film, exactly, but Nichols does an unsettlingly great job at instilling a sense of impending doom in the viewer, a vague unease that permeates the whole story.
Before I get caught up in my customary pseudo-philosophical navel-gazing, I should probably clarify just what this film is, exactly. It's mostly a subtle, slow-burning drama, a character study that incorporates themes of loneliness, family, mental illness, paranoia, and existentialism. As such, this film is not for everyone. It never really gets too heady, but Take Shelter will definitely challenge the viewer, often choosing to show instead of tell.
Curtis is expertly played by the delightfully demented Michael Shannon, who you might recognize from Man of Steel and whose earlier roles in Bug and Boardwalk Empire have well-prepared him to take on the role of Curtis, whose struggle with paranoid schizophrenia causes him to have forboding dreams of a coming apocalyptic storm. In his dreams, the sky rains motor oil, tornadoes ravage the clouds, and faceless strangers attack Curtis and his family. Over time, the fear he experiences in his dreams seeps into his waking life, causing Curtis to isolate himself from his friends and family as he desperately tries to prepare for the end of days.
The ominous sense of a coming disaster is indicated everywhere. Bigger and darker clouds creep menacingly across the sky. A slew of hazard warnings adorn the digging equipment Curtis operates at his job. When he goes to visit a local shrink, an "H1N1 Preparedness" poster hangs above his head. The signs are everywhere. There is no escape. Take shelter.
What I found most interesting is that Curtis' paranoia, while a legitimate diagnosable illness passed down from his schizophrenic mother, serves mainly as a vehicle to explore the film's existential preoccupations with loneliness, resignation, and the difficulty of connecting with other people. Curtis has a daughter whose recent hearing loss shuts her out of the ordinary world. Throughout the film, father and daughter recognize their mutual isolation and she becomes the only person he can trust.
The daughter Hannah expresses her loneliness by building sand castles and digging moats around them; Curtis instead digs out an underground storm shelter, which becomes his sole preoccupation as his relationships at work and at home fall apart. The shelter becomes Curtis' prison; he is both jailer and inmate. His self-imposed isolation is portrayed visually as well: examine this shot of Curtis as he works on the shelter while his estranged brother tries to get through to him. As the plot progresses, Curtis' world keeps getting smaller and smaller until the idea of the End of the World begins to take on a frightening new form: the severance of all outside connection, when you lock out all the world's demons until the only ones left to contend with are the ones in your own head.
On the off chance anyone reads this and decides to give this excellent flick a watch, I'll avoid talking about how the film ends or where the characters all end up. But Take Shelter isn't about whether or not the apocalypse is actually going to happen. It's a deeply personal exploration of a man who's lost faith in the stability of the world around him. Once you realize that, the parallels to the current social and economic climate become impossible to deny. A storm might indeed be coming; it might not. What we have to consider is whether the shelters we're preparing are the right ones to save us.
Written by Modern Sin