‘There’s a storm coming like nothing you’ve ever seen…’
Everyone feels the overriding sense of impending doom from time to time. Some more than others. Sometimes there is a perfectly rational explanation, sometimes there isn’t. With Take Shelter, writer-director Jeff Nichols explores the menacing gloom of unexplained anxiety in a way that is slow, meditative and often unnerving…
After suffering from strange nightmares and apocalyptic visions, family man Curtis (Michael Shannon) becomes obsessed with the idea that there is a world-ending storm on the horizon. His wife, Samantha (Jessica Chastain), is initially supportive, but his erratic behaviour eventually leads to the family being ostracised by their friends.
Curtis is an intense character so it takes an intense actor to play him. Luckily, Shannon is all bulging eye balls and throbbing veins, and his performance here is achingly haunted – it’s hard to watch at times. Chastain, too, carries a quiet desperation and helplessness that helps to ground the film in its wackier moments.
Aside from the performances, however, the real masterstroke here is that Nichols withholds the truth of what is happening to Curtis until the very end. As with something like Rosemary’s Baby, we don’t know how much of what we are seeing is real or imagined until the grim conclusion and this helps the film to remain captivating throughout.
While Take Shelter will be a little too slow and maudlin for some, anyone who has ever felt a tightness in their chest and butterflies in their stomach for seemingly no reason will relate to Shannon’s portrayal of anxiety here – a challenging film, but also a rewarding one.