06/04/2012: Take Shelter [2011]

Take Shelter was one of the big award winners of last year and after my disastrous attempt to watch a similar movie, The Tree of Life I was a little hesitant. However I was able to watch Take Shelter and I'm glad I did. That was one powerful movie masterpiece, and deserves all the awards it got.






I will start by saying that Take Shelter is very much a drama kind of character study movie. It will make you happy sometimes, sad others and overall will make you feel. It is not a movie you watch to be entertained and it's not going to be my favourite movie. However, it is an stunningly powerful movie, with great performances that will make anyone realize this film is not just your average movie.

Take Shelter is a story about some very touchy subject matter. A family of three living in Tornado Alley, deal with the problems that arise as Curtis begins to suffer from hallucinations and delusions that cause him to be paranoid that a storm is coming unlike any other storm. As such he begins to expand the storm shelter in the back yard, and soon his mental issues begin to have serious impacts on his work, his family and his life.

Nothing like shopping for Doomsday at the local grocer.

Mental health has always been a touchy subject matter, with varying levels of knowledge leading to disbelief and a lack of understanding. Michael Shannon (Curtis) himself refrained from doing any research so that he would have little knowledge like his character. Shannon is able to give us an amazingly powerful performance as Curtis as he struggles with his own reality.

With such great performances and the perfect pacing, I found you began to really care about the characters, and like any movie where you truly feel for the characters one wrong turn could ruin the whole movie. There were a couple of very important moments were the whole movie could have nose dived. Most of these moments occurred between Curtis and his wife, Samantha played by Jessica Chastain, and all of these moments are perfectly acted and stunningly strong.

I swear when he's adding the shipping container there isn't a single shot of this. Hmmm...

It is the relationship between Curtis and Samantha that is really the power behind the movie and had the most potential for failure, as I'm sure anyone will notice when watching. Both Michael Shannon and Jessica Chastain took home numerous best actor awards for their performances. The director and writer Jeff Nichols also took home a couple of awards for best picture. While I'm usually a little unhappy with the way those awards are handled Take Shelter earned every one them.

The ending is the only issue I had with this otherwise phenomenal movie  but even it can't ruin the experience. I would recommend Take Shelter to anyone, not if they're just looking for a couple hours of entertainment but for a really impacting movie experience.

Link:
Take Shelter IMDB