Blu-ray Review: TAKE SHELTER Is So Close to Brilliant

I know Take Shelter isn't the movie that's going to put a lot of daylight between actor Michael Shannon and the intense and/or crazy guy image he's cultivated onscreen since--well, pretty much as long as I can remember seeing him in films (he was in Groundhog Day, weird). Here he plays Curtis, an excavation foreman plagued apocalyptic feelings and premonitions that may be signs of the onset of schizophrenia or something more ominous. For most of the movie, writer-director Jeff Nichols plays fair with what's happening with Curtis and paints such a clear-eyed, visually interesting picture of mental decay and anguish, that by the time the final scene comes around, it feels like--maybe not a betrayal, but at least like the rug was pulled out from under you.

Curtis lives with his wife (Jessica Chastain) and young, hearing-impaired daughter in a religious, tight-knit community where everyone seems to know everyone else's business. When Curtis starts questioning his own mind, it's clear that he's as much afraid of alienating his community and the wife that stands by him as he is of just completely going out of his head. He tries to keep the visions to himself, the worry to himself and doesn't even tell his wife until it's obvious that there's something breaking down in him. When he starts building a shelter in his family's backyard, it seems like the natural thing to him but there are moments where you catch recognition in his eyes and know that Curtis sees how far off into the deep end he's gone and that he doesn't know how to come back.

I want to point out one of the best-realized scenes in the movie, a conversation between Curtis and Samantha (Chastain) where he explains that he had to get rid of the dog because he dreamed that it hurt him, that Curtis saw it as a threat. It's heartbreaking in that moment because you worry about this good and decent marriage coming undone for reasons that neither of these people can fix.

Nichols employs all sorts of brief, startling visuals to get you inside what Curtis is seeing, from flocks of birds that become sun-blotting swarms to the laws of gravity breaking in half to inconceivable storm clouds. But he does a lot more with an underground bunker and gas masks and a conversation about a key that holds Curtis' very mind at stake.

Really, watching Shannon's face is the movie's greatest asset. The actor conveys so many different shades of worry, fear, and yeah, intensity with just his brow and those wide, piercing eyes. There's a way about him at the start of the movie that communicates a solid, quiet, decent man who would do anything for you, and later still this kind of desperation that could become violence. It's not that we're afraid that he's going to hurt his wife or daughter as Take Shelter heads for its finale, it's that we're afraid that his wife and daughter will come to fear him and not want to be with this essentially decent guy.

So let me come around to that ending again, however briefly and hopefully without spoiling anything. I think it was a misstep and doesn't really deserve the fine movie that came before. Like I said, Nichols mostly plays fair and the ending could plausibly be taken at face value, but then it creates all sorts of questions that the movie that preceded it can't really answer without tripping over itself. But I want to think instead about the excellent movie that Take Shelter is for 95% of its running time. Shannon gives an incredible performance in it, and it's really a standout in recent memory.

Presentation and Special Features

The image is pretty crisp on this disc, particularly the digital effects in the middle of the film. The black levels are solid although the relatively muted color palette isn't done any favors in hi-def.

The most substantial feature is the commentary with Nichols and Shannon, where the duo carry on an amiable conversation about the making of the movie. Nichols seems a little more impressed about the enigma of the ending than it really warrants, but I'm not going to hold that against him too much.