Take Shelter | Little White Lies

Take Shel­ter

24 Nov 2011 / Released: 25 Nov 2011

Three people, a man, a woman, and a young girl, standing in a grassy field.
Three people, a man, a woman, and a young girl, standing in a grassy field.
3

Anticipation.

Won the Critics Week Grand Prize in Cannes.

4

Enjoyment.

Shannon and Chastain are a force to be reckoned with.

3

In Retrospect.

The supernatural horror/suburban drama mash-up doesn’t always sit well, but there’s no need to take shelter from the Shannon/Nichols partnership.

More metaphor­i­cal tact would turn Take Shel­ter from a brisk gale to a force five.

If the mea­sure of a man were deter­mined by his domes­tic feats, Cur­tis LaForche (Michael Shan­non) would be rub­ber stamped ordi­nary’. In small town Ohio he tal­lies shifts at a local drilling firm, bring­ing home enough bread to keep his wife Saman­tha (Jes­si­ca Chas­tain) and young daugh­ter Han­nah (Tova Stew­art) clothed and fed. It’s a mod­est exis­tence, but they get by. They’re con­tent. Happy.

But a storm is gath­er­ing in the dis­tance. Bird swarms and black­ened heav­ens become reg­u­lar sight­ings in Cur­tis’ dai­ly rou­tine. Wor­ry­ing­ly, he seems to be the sole observ­er of these omi­nous phe­nom­e­na. He’s about to descend into a per­son­al night­mare that will splin­ter his white-pick­et ide­al with the sud­den impact of a light­ning bolt.

On the sur­face, Take Shel­ter finds Shan­non occu­py­ing a famil­iar head­space. But as Shot­gun Sto­ries (Shan­non and writer/​director Jeff Nichols’ 2007 col­lab­o­ra­tion) proved, first impres­sions can deceive. Because although Cur­tis is a man with bib­li­cal inner demons to bat­tle, the schiz­o­phre­nia that con­sumes him comes from an ambigu­ous seed.

Like Shot­gun Sto­ries, we learn that Cur­tis’ father has not long passed away, and the addi­tion­al absence of his elder broth­er has thrust him into the patri­ar­chal spot­light. For the first time he’s aware of his own mor­tal­i­ty and the weight of his respon­si­bil­i­ties. Then, much lat­er, we meet his moth­er, a shell-like vic­tim of bipo­lar­i­ty. Is Cur­tis privy to apoc­a­lyp­tic pre­mo­ni­tions? Is his afflic­tion hered­i­tary? Or are the strains of man­hood begin­ning to rot his men­tal core?

The fact that Take Shel­ter leaves us with more ques­tions than answers is Nichols’ shrewdest move. The con­vic­tion of Shannon’s per­for­mance, allied with the notion that Cur­tis is fun­da­men­tal­ly a good man, ensures we keep the faith that brighter skies and Spring tides will return. Saman­tha, though loy­al, isn’t quite so sure.

Through her wor­ried and wea­ried eyes we see the LaForche world veer per­ilous­ly towards the point of no return. Like her, we fear that Cur­tis’ impul­sive actions may be fatal. The tor­na­do bunker he carves into the earth of his sub­ur­ban back­yard to pro­tect his brood from the End of Days might as well be an econ­o­my-sized casket.

But when motor oil is spat earth­wards from fat grey clouds and chirp­ing swells crash around Cur­tis’ head once more, it’s impos­si­ble to ignore the sen­sa­tion that dis­as­ter, be it human or nat­ur­al, is an inescapable force we must all even­tu­al­ly face. Life is frag­ile. Loss is inescapable.

For all its alle­gor­i­cal intrigue, how­ev­er, Nichols’ overzeal­ous splic­ing of genre and mood ulti­mate­ly dulls his film’s impact. The nar­ra­tive doesn’t need absolute clar­i­ty, it’s bet­ter for the lack of it, but a touch more metaphor­i­cal tact, or at least less rep­e­ti­tion, would turn Take Shel­ter from a brisk gale to a force five.

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