Take Shelter (2011)

 Curtis LaForche lives in a small Ohio town with his wife Samantha and six-year-old daughter Hannah, who is deaf. Money is tight, and navigating Hannah's healthcare and special needs education is a constant struggle. Despite that, Curtis and Samantha are very much in love and their family is a happy one. Then Curtis begins having terrifying dreams about an encroaching, apocalyptic storm. He chooses to keep the disturbance to himself, channeling his anxiety into the obsessive building of a storm shelter in their backyard. But the resulting strain on his marriage and tension within the community doesn't compare to Curtis' private fear of what his dreams may truly signify. Faced with the proposition that his disturbing visions signal disaster of one kind or another, Curtis confides in Samantha, testing the power of their bond against the highest possible stakes.

Take Shelter is a psychological thriller that can be downright haunting at times when it finally gets moving, but it seems to be standing still too long at certain moments in the film to keep you on the edge of your seat. But man o man, when it does get going, it gets 110% of your attention because it has moments of pure gold in filmmaking. Had it kept that pace for most of the film, it would surely be sitting near the top than the middle.

Our protagonist, Curtis, has a problem. He thinks the crazy gene that is passed down in his family has been passed to him. He sees things that nobody else seems to see, hears things only he can hear, and has strong panic attacks that take over his body.  Watching the paranoia overtake him and the eventual climax to all the build-up is fucking perfect. It reminds you exactly why you fell in love with movies in the first place. Its climax and ending both keep the tension at its highest point, and place dozen of questions into your head where the answers can only come from you and your interpretation of the film. Where I didn’t really enjoy it comes from the slow pace to that eventual climax. I don’t mind slowly paced dramas, but at times some of the material didn’t really add anything to the film, distorting your attention away from the film. It affected me from falling deeply in love with the film.

What I did fall in love with was Michael Shannon and the dynamite performance he gives here. He just dominates the screen and watching Shannon slowly go nuts is fascinating. His actions during the climax are enough to warrant his performance a top three for the year. Hopefully, during award season, he gets the attention he deserves and it leads to more roles like this instead of direct-to-dvd type of shit he’s put it out recently. His co-lead Jessica Chastin, the year’s breakout actress with 7 critically acclaimed movies, is in the unfortunate position to be once again cast in the shadow of somebody else. It seems to happen in all her movies, and it sucks because she is good in this, but will no doubt go unnoticed.

Take Shelter was one of this year’s most buzzed about films. Since its debut at Sundance, nothing but great things has been said about it.  It helped create an expectation that just couldn’t have been reached. It’s a film with a very strong performance carrying a good enough storyline that relied on a metaphor that could be the focal point on whether you like the film or not. It wasn’t the gritty drama I wanted, but still a film that tried enough to be worth your time.

Overall Score: 7.5/10