Following his acclaimed debut, Shotgun Stories, writer/director Jeff Nichols reteams with actor Michael Shannon to create a haunting tale that will creep under your skin and expose your darkest fears.
Curtis LaForche lives in a small town in Ohio with his wife, Samantha, and daughter, Hannah, a six-year-old deaf girl. When Curtis begins to have terrifying dreams, he keeps the visions to himself, channeling his anxiety into obsessively building a storm shelter in his backyard. His seemingly inexplicable behavior concerns and confounds those closest to him, but the resulting strain on his marriage and tension within his community can’t compare with Curtis’s privately held fear of what his dreams may truly signify.
Take Shelter features fully realized characters crumbling under the weight of real-life problems. Using tone and atmosphere to chilling effect, Nichols crafts a powerful psychological thriller that is a disturbing tale for our times. —Sundance Film Festival
Jeff Nichols, from Little Rock (Arkansas), stands out as one of the promising new deal in American cinema.
A complex hybridization between Malick and Spielberg (without ever limiting himself to these far-reaching elective filiations), he is right at the edge between American independent cinema and Hollywood industrial cinema. [Shotgun Stories] was striking due to its humble mastery of direction, its capacity to revisit America’s myths grasping at the same time both the territory and the landscape. One could see a “folk cinema”, in the tradition of the great American names, from John Ford to Terrence Malick in Badlands. One could also discover a brilliant actor, Michael Shannon, whose marmoreal grace evoked a “redneck” version of Christopher Walken. The same qualities can be found (including Michael Shannon) in Take Shelter; but there, the art of Americana is somehow “disturbed” by the codes of the genre movie, to be more specific those of the supernatural… read more
I don't think this is a fully auteurist film, but it isn't too far from being a masterpiece. It's top-notch storytelling, where finally the overused "is it real or is it not?" motif doesn't feel gimmicky. It's quite a miracle that film can communicate these completely subjective states of mind more than any other art form can in my opinion, and this film is a testament to that.
I have to admit that I stopped watching after half an hour. Maybe when you're young this film can impress you. But I have watched too many of these films, where horror, crime and catastrophe threaten the lives of middle class families living strange lives in this weird and foreign culture named American.
Despite Michael Shannon and Jessica Chastain's brilliant acting, this film failed to captivate me. I found it difficult to relate to the main character's illness. It kind of came out of nowhere - referring to the narrative - and this made me perceive the whole work as a not very accurate portrayal of anything in particular.
How does it come out of nowhere? It seems like the fact that we're always seeing the surface of it instead of the backstory, is what makes it so convincing. It's like Hemingway's iceberg theory--what isn't revealed is what makes the work even more meaningful.
Maybe I just have the wrong kind of sensibility. I was incapable of feeling involved into the whole thing. That could also be because the film depicts a quite distant reality from the one I am accustomed to relate to, and this wouldn't be an issue, but I think it's depicted in a way that fails to transpose it effectively and furthermore to deliver an universal message. But that's just my opinion
Great all around, but I would have preferred a more ambiguous ending, instead of the Boy Who Cried Tornado (but actually probably still has a mental illness). The magic ending felt kind of like a few steps back from what had otherwise been a pretty realistic representation of a family dealing with mental illness. But at least there wasn't Black Swan twirling schizo-lesbian BS ending, haha.
The French film journal has unveiled their choices for the best films of the year.
In our annual poll, we pair our favorite new films of 2011 with older films seen in the same year to create fantastic double features.
Best Film, Director and Use of Music. The Tree of Life scores Cinematography and, at least in part, Breakthrough Performer.
Most agree that “Nichols is fast becoming one of the deftest storytellers in American independent cinema.”
Brothel films are like submarine movies—the stories, the dramas, even the details always remain the same, held in a airtight container
Updated through 5/6. La Semaine de la Critique, known in the English-speaking world as Critics' Week, is celebrating its 50th year, and festivals
"Curtis (Michael Shannon), the central figure of Jeff Nichols's powerful, enigmatic drama Take Shelter, is living in the grip of overpowering
When Bob Dylan sang, “I’m livin’ in a foreign country/but I’m bound to cross the line,” I wonder if this is what he had in mind. Obviously, writer/director Jeff Nichols is not the first person to sketch… read review
It’s funny, you wait years for an apocalyptic arthouse film then two turn up within months of each other. While Lars Von Trier’s Melancholia took a metaphorical approach to the genre, using the impending… read review
Title: Take Shelter
Year: 2011
Country: USA
Language: English
Genre: Drama, Thriller
Director: Jeff Nichols
Writer: Jeff Nichols
Cast:
Michael Shannon
Jessica… read review
It is of little wonder that a hackneyed, wholly American film such as Take Shelter has struck a consistently favorable chord with critics and audiences alike. Films like this that pander to… read review