Take Shelter (2011) Reviews

• Premonition or Lost of Sanity?

  claudio_carvalho2013-01-12

  The family man and construction worker Curtis (Michael Shannon) is happily married with Samantha (Jessica Chastain) and they have a beloved deaf daughter, Hannah (Tova Stewart). Curtis works with his friend Dewart (Shea Whigham) in his team and his mother Sarah (Kathy Baker) has been interned in a clinic since she was thirty years old with paranoid schizophrenia. Out of the blue, Curtis has nightmares and visions of an apocalyptic storm and he becomes obsessed to build a well equipped storm shelter for his family and him in his backyard. Curtis spends the family savings and gets a loan from the bank to prepare the shelter. His obsession affects his work and his relationship with the locals and Curtis loses his job. Does Curtis have a premonition or is he losing his sanity? "Take Shelter" is an original drama developed in slow pace with magnificent performances. The screenplay is very well written and despite the running time of 120 minutes, the movie keeps the attention of the viewer until the very last ironic scene. My vote is eight. Title (Brazil): "O Abrigo" ("The Shelter)

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• Slow moving but completely worth it!

  KnightsofNi112011-11-06

  It seems that art films come in all shapes and sizes these days. If you look hard enough you'll find small independent art films within any genre. Take Shelter is a film you will find amongst dramatic thrillers, and it is definitely one you should seek out. It stars Michael Shannon as Curtis, a middle class family man working on the pipeline in Ohio. He leads a capable life where he must cope with his monetary issues as well as his deaf daughter. But he makes the most of it and lives a life of relative ease and compassion for his family. However, things become complicated when he starts seeing apocalyptic visions of a terrible storm he believes is on its way. The dreams and visions make his life very difficult and it becomes increasingly more stressful. Curtis must fight a battle within himself as he tries to figure out if these visions are meaningful or if he is just going crazy, as well as with his family and friends who become more disconnected from him as his sanity seems to deteriorate before their eyes. Take Shelter is a harrowing, dramatic, and slow building film that will surely amaze you once it is all over. Take Shelter is a film that moves so slowly and builds so dramatically that one begins to wonder if we're every getting to the end. It's an incredibly quiet and sincerely somber film. We spend almost the entire movie honing in on Michael Shannon's powerful facial expressions and the deep thought going into the story. It progresses so slowly with a build up that pushes its way through molasses. I'll admit that I was getting worried about this film not being as good as I expected it to be. I was afraid it might not live up to my expectations and that the payoff wouldn't be worth the crawling build up. But one you reach the end you will be incredibly satisfied. The payoff is incredible. I couldn't have asked for a better ending. It could not have been executed more precisely. It plays to something bigger than what you could have ever expected from this fantastic film. Just as my mind began to slip away from Take Shelter it ended with such a deep and deafening bang that my eyes flew open to realize the incredible film I had just sat through. Take Shelter might not look like much at first, but it turns out to be a tremendous film. It's smart, engaging, fascinating, and brutally sincere. This is a must see film for 2011. Depending on your attention span you may want to give up about an hour and a half in, but if you stick around for the end you will be very satisfied. I guarantee it.

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• Is anyone seeing this?

  jadeitejewel2011-12-12

  I'm going to try to be restrained in my praise of this film, but it's going to be hard, because I think it's about as close to perfect film-making as I've ever seen. I generally only write reviews for movies I've really loved, or really hated, and this movie I really loved. This is a masterpiece. I don't know where to begin, really. Leaving the cinema, I felt as though I'd had some kind of accident - a little as if I was in shock. I had a very strong physical reaction to this movie, in tandem with my emotional response, and in many scenes I felt my heart racing. This is powerful material and has been delivered with great skill. The pacing is perfect, moving slowly and quietly toward not one but several emotional climaxes, each greater than the last, allowing the audience to enter Curtis' world and share his emotions. The cinematography was beautiful, elegant, and achingly frightening at times; the dialogue was so real it hurt, and the soundtrack sinister and intense. Michael Shannon should win something for this role - he is Curtis completely and it's a complex and deeply sympathetic portrayal of the confusion of a good man, a complicated portrait of a man trying to BE a good man, in the face of his own fear. From the very beginning, the atmosphere is unsettled, and some of the dream sequences are heart-stoppingly frightening. The story is multi-layered, working with ideas of family, mental illness, responsibility, fear, the current feeling of the-end-is-nigh that everyone senses - when Curtis said, 'Is anyone seeing this?' I almost cried for him. I have thought very hard about this film since I saw it two days ago and I simply cannot fault anything about it, not one thing. I know I'm going to see it many times. It left me shaken and moved and I cannot wait to see more from this writer/director. Hands down the movie of the century, so far.

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• Intelligent, nicely shot film with great lead from Shannon

  Manton292011-08-11

  Take Shelter is an intelligent, thought provoking, nicely shot film featuring an excellent performance by Michael Shannon (an Oscar nomination, surely?), who was also great in director Nichols' previous/first film, Shotgun Stories. The film explores the line between fear and paranoia, or objectivity and subjectivity, as it's protagonist - a blue-collar family man of few words - wrestles with apocalyptic dreams and visions of a strange, possibly supernatural storm, responding to them as best he can as both literal warnings AND possible signs of mental illness. The film has a brooding, at times Hitchcockian atmosphere and a very timely feel to it (think financial and environmental disasters). Set in a rural community, we have plenty of lovely wide shots of the land- and sky-scape (also a strong element of Shotgun Stories) with some added CGI on the latter for the dream/visions. Shannon's performance constitutes at least 50% of this films worth but the rest of the cast are good too. It's a slow mover and, at around two hours and fifteen minutes, perhaps a bit too long. My wife and I did have a few criticisms after watching it (at the Sydney Film Festival), but I wouldn't want to discourage anyone from seeing this film, which will no doubt be a hot topic and bring Nichols deserved recognition when it goes on general release (September 30 2011 in US)

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• I still whisper

  CountZero3132011-11-26

  Take Shelter is a brooding, psychological thriller that does a wonderful job of generating foreboding and unease, while hinting at bigger thematic questions. Curtis is in construction, a steady guy in a steady job taking care of his family. His mate Dewart tells him, kindly and a little enviously, that he has a good life. That comment comes just as nightmares creep into the daytime for Curtis and the pressures of the possible descent of mental illness, and impending catastrophe, seep into his being. He makes the decision to tell no one but medical professionals. He needs help. But that does not mean his fears are unfounded. Michael Shannon is superb as mad-or-is-he? Curtis. When he gives voice to his darkest fears in a very public forum, he is the definition of unhinged. Jessica Chastain plays his put-upon wife Samantha, and gets to test her range in a nightmare sequence where she is tempted by a breadknife and the sight of her husband's exposed neck. The look on her face had me pushing back in my seat. The film opens with big, brooding questions. Is Curtis somehow psychic? Is the approaching doom related to their daughter's illness? Does the ever-present threat of economic ruin somehow inform these impending cataclysmic events? Horror film tropes are employed in the nightmare sequences, as Curtis wakes up just as he is attacked. This becomes slightly predictable at the third dream, and the film sags slightly in the second act. The two-hours plus running time is a tad flabby. But Shannon is commanding, the cinematography eerily beautiful, and the ending deliciously straightforward and ambiguous. We live in uncertain times. Those who carry on blindly and trust it will be okay may be the maddest of us all. Take Shelter shows one man unravelling, and resonates with all our contemporary worries. Highly recommended.

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