Take Shelter

Dir: Jeff Nichols

Year: 2011

Cast: Michael Shannon, Jessica Chastain, Shea Whigham

Genre: Drama/Thriller

Cert: 15

Rating: ★★★★★

IMDb

Take Shelter is the story of a Family man named Curtis, he works on a construction site with his best friend Dewart (Yes, I too thought it was like someone with a speech impediment saying Stewart) He lives with his wife, Samantha and deaf daughter, Hannah. Out of nowhere Curtis begins to have apocalyptic visions, some in real life as hallucinations and others in his sleep, both of which he takes to heart. He imagines a storm is coming to end the world and he sets out to create a storm shelter in his garden to protect his family, though with all that is happening, it seems to be doing a number on his sanity. We wonder is this storm prophecy going to come true? Or is it all a load of bollocks?


Congratulations Take Shelter, you're my very first five star review on my blog! (Bear in mind plenty will follow) but still, you're number 1!

Anyway! My thoughts on this film are rather obvious considering I gave it a five starts but I will go into why! The main would be that Michael Shannon is one of the best actors alive at the moment, he never fails to disappoint and he was absolutely magnificent in this, giving it his all in every scene and delivering one of the coolest, most fanatical christian sounding lines ever to a room full of terrified people - "There's a STORM comin' like nothin' you've ever seen! And not ONE of you is prepared for it!" - If your arsehole isn't 93% tighter than usual after that line then you're just not human or you've huffed yourself a few too many bottles of amyl nitrate. I've never seen crazy eyes work so well with an actor, it seems everything he's in he plays a lunatic of sorts (As mentioned in my previous review) but it's good to see him play a lunatic who has a good reason for it. Some proper intense scenes in it too, of horror movie standards, and I mean that totally in an atmospheric sense. One of his dreams has these faceless lunatics causing him to crash and they kidnap his daughter, he constantly wakes up choking and vomiting blood due to these. How he acts in all these scenarios is fantastic too, VERY excited to see him return in Boardwalk Empire and his new movie, The Iceman.

Speaking of Boardwalk Empire, he teams up with co-star Shea Whigham in this, he plays good ol' Dewart. Was interesting for many reasons seeing them act so fondly towards each other due to how different they are in Boardwalk, also think this was made around the same time as the start of that so they musta seen each other quite a bit! Shea isn't in this for a HUGE amount but he's excellent in the scenes he is in, especially in the scene before that great quote above! Dewart's wife, Nat, played by Katy Mixon was also featured very little, and was near impossible to take seriously after Eastbound & Down, but she was still good in her parts, she basically played her April role, a dunce. Jessica Chastin was very good in this too, she seems to be in EVERYTHING lately but I never notice it's her, even if she keeps the same hair colour she just looks like a different person each time. Was interesting to see her actually act on the things Shannon is doing in this as well as combat them. Most films they just disregard everything that is said and push the main person away, but she seemed as if she was listening in this and willing to help. Even though she was deaf and said nothing in this film, Tova Stewart was very good, and to be honest, deserved an Oscar for not crying out of fear in every scene with Shannon...

The director, Jeff Nichols is in the process of making another film called Mud, also starring the extremely reliable Shannon, another for me to look forward to and I'm especially interested in his directorial debut, starring Shannon again! which was done in 2007, Shotgun Stories. Plenty of Michael Shannon to view in the next while!

Anyway, I think this is an absolutely amazing Drama/Thriller (Sci-fi of sorts but wouldn't really categorize it as that) and should be viewed by everyone immediately! Will show the world what real cinema talent is, none of that fucking Twilight nonsense...

5 Apocalypses out of 5.