Take Shelter - Review

Take Shelter (2011)

This movie is from director Jeff Nichols is an amazing director who many will know for directing the indie drama Mud starring Matthew McConaughey which is also a great film which helped resurrect McConaughey's career.

Take Shelter is another brilliant character study this time of a blue collar man (Michael Shannon) whose struggle with an emerging mental illness forces his life into chaos. Shannon is amazing in this especially at showing how he behaves differently depending on the people around him. Specifically, when he is at the doctor’s office he is completely open and unemotional, at work he acts as if nothing is wrong, and at home he tries his best to play the perfect husband and dad all the while hiding the growing internal struggle he is battling with. I thought it was a brilliant nuanced performance of a complex character.

Jessica Chastain is likewise great here especially toward the film’s end where she is shown to empathize with her husband and even goes so far in trying to help him overcome the delusions he is suffering by acknowledging their existence and playing out a fantasy for him which she uses to show them to be untrue.

Shea Whigham and Robert Longstreet also gave two phenomenal performances here even with the limited scenes they were given which worked to give this film a foundation.

These two men deserve bigger roles as they always deliver no matter how small the part they are given is. Whigham was always great in Boardwalk Empire as Nucky's brother while Longstreet has made a career out of starring roles in Mike Flanagan's numerous horror themed mini series.

The ending of this film is one of the better ambiguous conclusions that I can remember which worked to leave a lasting impression on the viewer. My interpretation of the ending is that Chastain is acknowledging that the visions Shannon is having he will always have and she will need to deal with this in perpetuity if she is to continue living with him. Additionally, while the storm at the end of the film is shown in vivid detail it is first revealed in a reflection on the glass door behind Chastain which I believe was a purposeful decision to relay the fact that the nature of these storms is less than real and instead something Shannon has imagined.

The rain hitting her ring finger is telling in in that it is conveying that these storms that Shannon sees will always be there so long as she is involved in this marriage as Shannon will never be free from them.

The ending is not hopeless as Shannon goes to Chastain when the storm hits. I believe the movie is showing that while Shannon will always have these delusions he can find comfort and relief from his family with Chastain. Similar to the ending in A Beautiful Mind, it’s not about making the visions go away but learning how to cope in spite of and live with them.

This is a great drama film bolstered by two great lead performances that is well worth watching and one that I recommend to anyone as this human story about how one man’s struggle with mental illness became more manageable with the support of his family.

My only real complaint with the movie is that the entire plot felt plagiarized to a degree from the amazing show Six Feet Under where James Cromwell’s character George Sibley became obsessed with the family bomb shelter and felt he couldn’t leave it after stocking it and fixing it up.

Here is the trailer for Take Shelter: