Take Shelter

Nobody plays the mentally ill better than Michael Shannon. Let's be honest, he looks mentally ill with the crooked lip, and the steel-cut eyes. This time, he plays a man plagued by haunting visions of an imminent storm, and the paranoia drives him mad.

Curtis is an unassuming husband and father with a good construction management career and a few close friends, when he begins to see signs and have nightmares. Soon, the pressure begins to unravel his sanity, and as he builds a storm shelter in his back yard, it pushes him away from his friends and family, until his life ultimately crashes down around him.

Subtlety is the key word for this film, and with the exception of one absolutely explosive tirade, it is a tension-building psychological thriller that builds to an appropriate and satisfying (if not unbelievable) climax. The director, Jeff Nichols is an unknown, and isn't using any special tricks or tactics. Using a plain setting in an ordinary town, he uses Shannon as the singular cinematic tool for capturing the intense emotional struggle.

Shannon is electric. Curtis knows he's losing his mind, but he's not sure what to do about it, being torn between building the shelter to save his family, or not building the shelter to save his family. With a very well-placed family history of mental illness, Take Shelter crescendos to a point that makes the viewer wonder if he wasn't a prophet all along.

Jessica Chastain co-stars as Shannon's wife, and she plays a good role, although I would have liked to have seen a bit more fear and nervousness, and a bit less of a 1950's wife who sticks by her man through everything. Maybe it's better this way considering the ending, but I wanted to be terrified by Shannon and his inner demons.

Rarely do actors come along who can take on roles this naked, and it's indicative of greatness. His words, actions, expressions all convey the pain and uncertainty that his character is being tormented by, but he also has the look of exploding and just going off the deep end at any moment. That's what's beautiful about it.

It will be a shame if Shannon doesn't receive a nomination for this role. To see his best work to date, see his scene-stealing part in Revolutionary Road for which he received a supporting actor nomination in 2009. This movie was creepy and eerie, but it's all about Shannon. 6/10.