The story is eerily familiar. A man plagued by signs of an impending apocalyptic storm and his struggle to be understood by the society that surrounds him. But director Jeff Nichols takes a different spin on this concept in his second feature film, Take Shelter (2011, USA), placing our “Noah” in a contemporary rural American setting and creating an internal struggle between prophecy and insanity. Through Nichols’ use of setting, production design, music, visual effects and most importantly, performances, he is able to create an incredibly powerful film that stimulates contemplation of today’s society long after audiences leave the theater.
The slow-paced character study follows Curtis, played by Academy Award-nominated actor Michael Shannon, a hard-working sand-miner who lives with his loyal wife Samantha (Jessica Chastain) and his deaf daughter Hannah (Tova Stewart) in the plains of Ohio. The family that has lived enjoying the simple pleasures in life is tested when Curtis begins to encounter visions and dreams of violent storm clouds, rust-colored rain, massive bird formations (a possible homage to Hitchcock), and physical attacks that leave him both emotionally and physically crippled. Curtis struggles to decipher whether these visions are a prophetic indication of things to come or a sign of his consciousness slipping into the paranoid schizophrenia that struck his mother at about the same age. His behavior becomes enigmatic, sneaking away to therapy meetings and spending thousands in credit to improve the family storm shelter, which estranges him from his neighbors and closest friends while creating extreme levels of angst in his marriage. Samantha observes the inner torture her husband is experiencing, deeply disturbed by Curtis’ transformation into a complete stranger, but is determined to fight for her family. The film challenges audiences to solve the mystery of Curtis’ visions with him as it explores every detail of his fight with mental illness.
The film provides enthralling commentary on several aspects of modern American life, from the struggles of raising a family to the difficult condition of the economy. Nichols does a spectacular job of setting up a simple American family in rural Ohio. A family that takes pleasure in the little moments in life despite having a handicapped child and being on the verge of bankruptcy. The setting was intentionally simplistic, shown through the vast shots of the plains, the expansive backyard, the old wooden house, and small town gatherings in order to focus the attention on the intimate life of this family. The fragile financial state is also shown through the simplistic production design and the realistic performances, with characters consciously going out of their way to work a little harder to make some extra cash. It is this setup that makes Curtis’ collapse that much more disturbing, portraying a realism that tears him between his own mental health and the well being of his family. To make matters worse, the constant struggle to keep up with finances in the tough contemporary economy creates more anxiety and tension in the story as this family desperately attempts to stay on its feet despite the fissures at its core. The film is a reflection of many relevant concerns in modern American society that becomes inherent in the film’s apocalyptic finale.
Take Shelter draws many parallels to another film released in 2011, Nicolas Refn’s Drive. The films fall in very different genres, one a psychological drama and the other an action/romance, however both could be considered very “quiet” films. By this I mean, both stories are not told through dialogue but rather establish character development and dramatic complexity through performance. Both films have a generally slow pace with emphasis on the psychological states of the characters with periods of violent action that reengage the viewer. Both films utilize actors that are emerging stars as their protagonists in Michael Shannon and Ryan Gosling. Both choices turn out to be spectacular for the characters they play as Michael Shannon, who already has a natural look of disquiet, delivers a dynamic performance from the moments of simple pleasure he gets from playing with his daughter to the violent outbursts he delivers in front of the whole community. Gosling also delivers a similarly dynamic performance that creates a profoundly complex character without much dialogue from his soft-spoken, gentle moments of romance to his gruesomely violent encounters with assassins. Both performances are incredibly effective in delivering character details and profound commentary on the world they live in without having to speak, an accomplishment that should be lauded by writers, actors, and directors alike.
To add to their slow pace and “quiet” nature, both films effectively use music, or lack of music, to establish tone and mood to their scenes. It is the periods of isolation, such as Shannon’s stunned observation of his hallucinations or Gosling’s self-therapy in his car, where both Take Shelter and Drive utilize silence to accentuate the drama and mental state of their protagonists and the technique is incredibly effective in drawing audiences into the moment. This also provides excellent contrast to the chaotic filmic worlds depicted in both stories where everything that can go wrong, will go wrong. 
In regards to Take Shelter, I enjoyed the film a lot. It moved slowly at times but I was so enthralled by the performances and the relationships in the film that I never remotely lost interest. The casting of Michael Shannon and Jessica Chastain could not have been more spot on. Shannon, who already has the look of someone mentally unstable such as his role as schizophrenic John Givings in Sam Mendes’ Revolutionary Road, delivers an incredible performance portraying the believability of an everyman slipping into insanity. He does an incredible job straddling the line of conscious connection to reality, as he remains relatively socially acceptable throughout most of the film. Jessica Chastain is equally as impressive in her performance startling the emotions of support and fear as she watches her husband’s actions become more and more erratic. The film remains consistently psychological trapping audiences in the mind of Shannon as we collectively try to figure out whether he is a prophet or simply delusional while also reflecting many of the physical and emotional fears of today’s society. Jeff Nichols’ execution is close to flawless as his execution of filmic elements comes together to create a profound portrait of mental illness and its effect on those around it. The ending is somewhat controversial and can be interpreted in many ways to answer the question “Is Curtis crazy?” and in some ways, it would have appreciated the film more if the ending was more ambiguous, but I think it is thought provoking and provides closure in some respect. Overall, Take Shelter is an incredible twist on Noah’s biblical tail but provides an overwhelming sense of contemporary Americana that hits so close to home, its scary.
The New Direction 