Miss-Delectable
New Member
- Joined
- Apr 18, 2004
- Messages
- 17,164
- Reaction score
- 5
Movie review: A troubled man, his wife and deaf daughter help one another "Take Shelter" - The Denver Post
Want to know what torment looks like? Consult actor Michael Shannon.
The tall, craggy-faced Kentuckian has given voice and grimace, slump and shiver to anguish in films as varied as "Revolutionary Road," where he portrayed an emotionally troubled stranger speaking truth to a married couple; and "Machine Gun Preacher," where he plays a struggling addict.
He was positively freaky as rock promoter Kim Fowley in the Joan Jett bio-flick "The Runaways." TV viewers will recognize him as conflicted revenue agent Nelson Van Alden of HBO's Prohibition Era winner, "Boardwalk Empire."
Now the Oscar-nominated actor delivers a turn of profound tribulation in "Take Shelter." Written and directed by Jeff Nichols, the film is itself a work of hushed and persuasive emotional veracity.
Curtis LaForche lives in rural Ohio with wife Samantha (Jessica Chastain) and their young daughter, Hannah, who is deaf. He works for a sandmining concern. Though Sam is a homemaker, she helps fill the till with money earned from her handmade crafts.
"You've got a good life, Curtis," says friend and co-worker Dewart (Shea Whigham). And he does, but he's also beset by darkening, vague dreams of cataclysm. The movie's gnawing question: Are the dreams harbingers of a worldwide catastrophe, or omens of a more personalized apocalypse?
He's dogged by hallucinations, too. Things that could easily be seen as beautiful — the blackening of a summer sky, tendrils of lightning, the arc and wheel of a flock of birds — become vexing portents. There is thunder, persistent claps of it, on clear days.
A visit to his mother, Sarah (Kathy Baker), who was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia, then institutionalized when Curtis was 10, doesn't provide conclusive answers.
Nichols and his cinematographer don't rely on a change in hue or film grain to signal the shifts from real to uncanny. In making the line between the real and the feared, between drama and horror, ever so thin, they makes Curtis' unsure state our own.
Curtis begins acting on the feelings left in the wake of his visions. He worries his forearm for a full day after dreaming that his beloved dog bit him. He checks out books on mental illness. He talks to his doctor for meds and then a referral.
None of this stops him from repurposing a tornado shelter into a bunker. While Samantha navigates real-world demands — Hannah's schooling and health-care insurance — Curtis begins stocking shelves with canned goods.
Chastain brings lovely clarity and sturdy compassion to the role of a mate who, once she knows something's amiss, isn't cowed.
And Nichols has a benevolent knack for the details of familial communication. An especially fine moment finds Curtis and Sam standing in the doorway of Hannah's bedroom as she sleeps.
"I still take off my boots so I won't wake her," he says. "I still whisper," she replies.
Exchanges outside the house ring equally true. "Take Shelter" makes sure the LaForches have our support. Even when we fear for Sam and Hannah's safety, we never turn our backs on Curtis' suffering, the way we fled Jack Torrance's madness in "The Shining."
In the movie's increasingly, quietly menacing atmosphere there are no evildoers. When a friend furiously confronts Curtis, it's sad, but understandable.
"Take Shelter" is a film in which people try not to fail one another. To say the movie arrives as a tonic may be an understatement.
Want to know what torment looks like? Consult actor Michael Shannon.
The tall, craggy-faced Kentuckian has given voice and grimace, slump and shiver to anguish in films as varied as "Revolutionary Road," where he portrayed an emotionally troubled stranger speaking truth to a married couple; and "Machine Gun Preacher," where he plays a struggling addict.
He was positively freaky as rock promoter Kim Fowley in the Joan Jett bio-flick "The Runaways." TV viewers will recognize him as conflicted revenue agent Nelson Van Alden of HBO's Prohibition Era winner, "Boardwalk Empire."
Now the Oscar-nominated actor delivers a turn of profound tribulation in "Take Shelter." Written and directed by Jeff Nichols, the film is itself a work of hushed and persuasive emotional veracity.
Curtis LaForche lives in rural Ohio with wife Samantha (Jessica Chastain) and their young daughter, Hannah, who is deaf. He works for a sandmining concern. Though Sam is a homemaker, she helps fill the till with money earned from her handmade crafts.
"You've got a good life, Curtis," says friend and co-worker Dewart (Shea Whigham). And he does, but he's also beset by darkening, vague dreams of cataclysm. The movie's gnawing question: Are the dreams harbingers of a worldwide catastrophe, or omens of a more personalized apocalypse?
He's dogged by hallucinations, too. Things that could easily be seen as beautiful — the blackening of a summer sky, tendrils of lightning, the arc and wheel of a flock of birds — become vexing portents. There is thunder, persistent claps of it, on clear days.
A visit to his mother, Sarah (Kathy Baker), who was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia, then institutionalized when Curtis was 10, doesn't provide conclusive answers.
Nichols and his cinematographer don't rely on a change in hue or film grain to signal the shifts from real to uncanny. In making the line between the real and the feared, between drama and horror, ever so thin, they makes Curtis' unsure state our own.
Curtis begins acting on the feelings left in the wake of his visions. He worries his forearm for a full day after dreaming that his beloved dog bit him. He checks out books on mental illness. He talks to his doctor for meds and then a referral.
None of this stops him from repurposing a tornado shelter into a bunker. While Samantha navigates real-world demands — Hannah's schooling and health-care insurance — Curtis begins stocking shelves with canned goods.
Chastain brings lovely clarity and sturdy compassion to the role of a mate who, once she knows something's amiss, isn't cowed.
And Nichols has a benevolent knack for the details of familial communication. An especially fine moment finds Curtis and Sam standing in the doorway of Hannah's bedroom as she sleeps.
"I still take off my boots so I won't wake her," he says. "I still whisper," she replies.
Exchanges outside the house ring equally true. "Take Shelter" makes sure the LaForches have our support. Even when we fear for Sam and Hannah's safety, we never turn our backs on Curtis' suffering, the way we fled Jack Torrance's madness in "The Shining."
In the movie's increasingly, quietly menacing atmosphere there are no evildoers. When a friend furiously confronts Curtis, it's sad, but understandable.
"Take Shelter" is a film in which people try not to fail one another. To say the movie arrives as a tonic may be an understatement.