In one of the biggest, baddest episodes of the Way Too Indiecast yet, we welcome two of the best directors in the game as we hear from Richard Linklater about his ’80s college hangout movie Everybody Wants Some!! and are joined by Jeff Nichols, whose sci-fi thriller Midnight Special hits theaters this weekend as well.

WTI’s very own Ananda Dillon chats with Bernard about what she saw of AMC’s new Preacher series at WonderCon this past weekend, and if that wasn’t enough, the Dastardly Dissenter himself, CJ Prince, chimes in to talk about the recent controversy surrounding the Tribeca Film Festival and share his Indie Pick of the Week. Whew! What are you waiting for? Dive into the deep end of this week’s pool of ooey gooey Indiecast goodness!

And if that last sentence grosses you out…um…just hit play and enjoy.

Topics

• Indie Picks (5:18)
• Richard Linklater (18:42)
• Preacher Preview (32:17)
• Tribeca Vaxxed Controversy (51:13)
• Jeff Nichols (1:06:32)

Articles Referenced

• City of Gold Interview
• Fireworks Wednesday Review
• Everybody Wants Some!! Interview
• Midnight Special Interview
• Preacher Preview

Subscribe to the Way Too Indiecast

• Subscribe to our podcast on iTunes
• Subscribe on Stitcher

Like his 2011 film Take Shelter, Jeff Nichols‘ Midnight Special was born out of fear, specifically the fear of losing his son.

“I think, really, we’re terrified of losing them, so we’re going to try to figure out who they are to try to help them. Help them become the ones who manifest their own destiny,” the director told me during an interview I conducted a couple of weeks back. That fatherly fear is at the core of the film, though the story blossoms into something much bigger, touching on themes of friendship, homeland security, science, and religion, all in the mode of a sci-fi thriller.

Michael Shannon stars as a man escorting his supernaturally gifted son to a secret location, all while evading an armed religious sect and U.S. military forces. Aiding them on their journey is an old friend (Joel Edgerton) and the boy’s mother (Kirsten Dunst); a government scientist (Adam Driver), meanwhile, tries to understand the family’s plight as he tracks their location.

Terrifically thrilling and deeply affecting, Midnight Special is yet another showcase by one of this generation’s very best visual storytellers and opens in theaters this weekend.

Some people consider your movies to be vague or overly ambiguous. That’s maybe the biggest criticism levied against you.
It’s funny how everybody wants to be polite. Obviously, I made the film with an open ending on purpose. It’s like, let’s talk about it! If you don’t like it…maybe, rather than just being entrenched in your position, if we talk about it, you might be illuminated on something. It was funny, I had a good conversation with a lady in Berlin about [the movie]. She had a very specific place where she thought I should end the movie. She was very specific about not liking the end of the movie, and I said, “That’s cool. Where would you end the movie?” She told me, and I thought, that would be a terrible ending! She was like, “Well, it’s right. That’s where you should have ended it.” I was like, I really don’t think you’re right! I didn’t convince her, but it was at least fun to have a conversation.

So you do enjoy those conversations.
I do, yeah.

I do, too. If I meet a filmmaker and I didn’t like their movie, maybe, and I get illuminated by their insight…I love that.
The reality is, making movies is really complex. It’s a strange algebra. There are so many variables that go into them. I would be shocked if you met a filmmaker who said, “My film’s perfect,” you know? I don’t know if I want to be friends with that person.

Tommy Wiseau.
[laughs] It goes beyond ego. I want these films to be conversation starters, so of course it makes sense that I would want to have conversations about them. As long as people don’t ask me too many specifics about things. It’s cool to see how people’s minds work on them and work on the problems I created. It’s cool to hear how people interpret things, sometimes random, sometimes spot-on, sometimes differently. It’s fun.

In some ways, this movie is like the Superman movie I always wanted in terms of tone and taste, do you know what I mean?
I do.

The existential crisis of Superman is something that’s seldom handled well.
That’s very interesting. I think Zack Snyder scratched the surface of it. I think someone—maybe it was JJ Abrams—was talking about [doing] a Superman film and he was like, “I just wonder how he didn’t kill anybody as a baby.” I know that there are other people who have takes on it. I never saw this character as a superhero—I just saw him as a boy. His illnesses I just thought of as being organic, even though they’re supernatural. The same thing happened with

The same thing happened with Take Shelter. To your comment, specifically—wanting to see a certain version of a kind of movie…This is going to sound ridiculous, but Take Shelter was kind of my zombie movie. Take Shelter was my take on all those cool feelings in a zombie film where people are preparing for a disaster or preparing for the zombie stuff. I just wanted to make a movie that lived in that part. Then you start to make it deeper and more meaningful and relate it to your life, but that was very much the case with Take Shelter and here [with Midnight Special] too. I really liked those movies of the ’80s and sci-fi movies from that period. I kind of wanted to live in that world for a little bit, which doesn’t negate, though, my approach to the story or how I broaden its veins into my own life. It doesn’t discount that feeling, that sense you get after having seen stuff like that. I felt that way with Mud, too. I had this notion of what a classic American film was. I couldn’t tell you one specifically, but I can tell you a combination of several. Cool Hand Luke, The Getaway…I kind of wanted it to feel like some of the things I felt during those movies.

Midnight Special applies to that. So many people try to make these one-to-one analogies with these films, especially with the endings and other things. Those are kind of lost on me. That’s not how I thought about them. I just thought about the essence of those films.

Hitchcock’s movies were driven by his personal fears. Would you say you’re the same?
Absolutely. One hundred percent. The interesting thing about Hitchcock is that he chose fear as a predominant format to work in, which makes sense because that’s best for directors.

How so?
The feeling of fear is most directly linked to the toolbox that a director has to work with. This shot plus this shot equals this feeling. This music here, this framing here. I’m not going to give you much lead space in front of your eyes, and that’s going to freak people out. It’s different in comedy or drama…they’re not really genres. They’re these feelings. Fear most directly relates most to what a director does. I approach it a little differently. Definitely in Take Shelter, there are some scary moments, and they’re intended to be scary. I was getting to use that toolbox. I approach fear more from the standpoint of a writer. I use fear as a catalyst. Fear makes for a scary scene—“This is going to be a scary moment”—that’s what I’m talking about with Hitchcock. What I’m talking about as a writer…fear is a catalyst for a bigger idea. It’s a catalyst for the thought that you’re trying to convey to the audience, which for me is always an emotion—it’s not a story. It’s not plot. It’s not, “I’m going to tell you a story about what happened to a guy.” It’s, “I’m going to tell you a story about how a guy feels.”

Fear is a great place to start from. Fear is what motivates us as humans to get out and gather the food and build the shelter. It’s like a foundational element of humanity. But fear is only a catalyst. For instance, this film is about the fear of losing my son. That brings up a lot of emotions and other things, but that’s not a thought in and of itself. I can’t just make a movie about a guy afraid of losing his son. What does he do with that? What’s he trying to do with that fear? I think that forced me to think about the actual nature of parenthood. What are we trying to do? We’re trying to, I think, define for ourselves who our children are, in the purest way we possibly can. Sometimes, our own point of view gets in the way and we project that onto our kids. But I think, really, we’re terrified of losing them, so we’re going to try to figure out who they are to try to help them. Help them become the ones who manifest their own destiny. We have no control over that destiny. We have no control over who they become. At best, we can try to help them realize who they are and help them become that.

That became a thought. Fear produced that thought, which became the backbone for this movie. In Take Shelter, I was afraid of the world falling apart. I was afraid of not being a good provider for my family, or an adult, or a good husband. I was afraid of all those things, and there was a bunch of anxiety that came from that. But that’s not what that movie’s about—that movie’s about communicating in marriage. That movie’s about the foundational principles of marriage, which I think is communication. That’s why I made the daughter deaf. I think, in order to get that, I needed to have fear. Shotgun Stories is about the fear of losing one of my brothers. But ultimately that’s not what the movie’s about. It’s about the fruitlessness of revenge, a revenge that was born out of that fear.

I think there’s a huge misunderstanding among moviegoers in this country. People are obsessed with plot. That’s how they critique movies—solely on the plot! From the stunning opening of this movie, it’s clear you’re not interested in exposition. This is cinema, that’s it. We’re dealing with emotions, images, and sound. I wish more people appreciated that. I think maybe they do, subconsciously.
Maybe they do, you know? It depends on what people want out of a film. At different times you want different things. A lot of people—and I’m this audience sometimes—want escapism. Look at the way people use score. Score, even more than expositional dialogue, is the way to telegraph a pass, like in basketball. You never telegraph a pass—you never want the defense to know where you’re looking, because they’ll know where you’re going to throw the ball and then they’ll steal it. You can telegraph so much by having two characters speak, and then you put this music underneath it. Everybody knows they’re supposed to be scared, or they’re supposed to be happy, or they’re supposed to be sad. When you remove score, which I mostly did in Shotgun Stories, it’s very offputting to people. All of a sudden, they’re having to judge a scene on its own merits, not on this feeling that you’re giving them. They actually have to start listening. That’s just an example of my broader approach: If you remove certain things, people have to listen.

Some people don’t want that experience when they go to the theater, and that’s okay. I’ll catch you the next time, or maybe I’ll catch you on a Sunday night, when you’ve got a little more free time. It’s my job, though, to try and understand the nature of how people receive stories. It’s natural to search for plot. That’s how our brains work. I don’t hold it against anybody, but that doesn’t mean I’m not going to challenge them through a new type of organization of information. Because that’s all it is—you’re just organizing information in a certain way so that it lands at certain times. My movies have plot. I just don’t think it’s the going concern. I think writers are so concerned sometimes with just making things clear.

I know that studios are. They test these things to make sure that no stone is unturned and that people are getting what they want. But what people want isn’t always what they need. I’m fascinated by story dynamics. I’m fascinated by what works for an audience and what doesn’t, what keeps them engaged and what doesn’t. If you’re not working on the edge of all that, you’re never going to have a situation where someone says, “My nails were dug into the edge of my chair,” and one person writes, “This movie is boring as hell.” I have to be okay with both of those responses. I don’t think I could get either if I was just trying to walk down the middle of the road.

About the opening, again, which I love so much…
I think it’s the best opening I’ll ever do.

Some people might consider it disorienting, but I think, for this story, you get exactly the amount of information you need.
What’s funny for me is, I think it’s so obvious. I’m wondering, like, will people just know that, once he picks the boy up into his arms in the hotel room, that obviously he’s not a kidnapper? Yes, they do, but since it hasn’t been so specifically told to them, they feel it, but they don’t know it yet. That’s a really great place to be. To me, it’s just so obvious. “That mystery’s solved.” But it’s not yet. It’s not totally solved. I have this line of Sam Shepard revealing, “The birth father, Roy Tomlin.” I wrote that scene specifically to be a surprise to the FBI, because they haven’t had the ranch under surveillance long enough to know that he was the birth father. The thing I’m wondering is, is it a surprise to the audience? That’s what I [mean] when I talk about narrative mechanics. I’m just so fascinated. When did you know? Here’s when I tell you, or here’s where I specifically don’t tell you.

Obviously, Joel Edgerton’s profession in the film—that was really specific. I remember giving [the script] to this young girl who was going to be a PA on our film. I gave her the script, and maybe she wasn’t the sharpest tack in the drawer, but she read it and just so clearly was like, “You have to tell us sooner that he’s a state trooper. We need to know that because I was really turned off when he did what he did at the end of the film. If I had known that, I’d have felt a lot better about his character a lot sooner.” She was so earnest in her argument. But it’s like, don’t you understand that you having all these emotions is part of the process? It’s part of the story. It just made me smile, and she probably thought I was a dickhead.

Joel gives you so much.
He’s a great actor.

In that scene in particular, he tells you what you need to know in how he behaves.
There you go! I thought it was pretty obvious. He walks over to the fallen state trooper and speaks in a way that no normal person would speak on the police radio. I was like, well, I’m just letting people know there. That’s what his character would do. A bad version of that writing would be [for him] to go over and say, “Hey, hey, there’s a police officer shot.” That wouldn’t be honest to him either. He wants that guy to get help. That’s why he goes and does it. He did not want to go shoot that guy. You could have Jeff Nichols the writer brain go, “If I have him speak that way, I’ll show my cards too soon.” But that’s as dishonest as having him explain that he’s a state trooper. Both of those things are dishonest. My fear for this movie…any shortcoming is when I might have been to purposefully ambiguous in a scene. I’ve read that critique, and I’ve gone back in and I’ve looked at it, and I don’t know. I’ve been able to reason out why they would behave that way. Point being, character behavior trumps all narrative desire.

I paint myself into corners all the time. It’s like, okay, I have this very strict rule about character behavior and dialogue, but I need this piece of information in the movie. It’s my job to craft a scene that allows that piece of information to come through, or we don’t get it. Then I deal with that consequence. It’s like an austerity to the writing you have to apply. You really have to stick to it. You really do.

Kirsten Dunst’s character is one of my favorite motherly characters in a while. You don’t see this stuff often. Without spoiling anything, the things she does, the way she reacts to things—it feels authentic, it feels real.
I think she’s the strongest character in the film. I think she’s able to do something the male characters can’t, specifically Michael Shannon’s. I’m not just saying this to gain the pro-women’s lib lobby. Watching my son be born and what my wife did and then what she did the year that followed…there’s no doubt in my mind that women are the stronger sex in terms of fortitude and emotions. I was very struck in high school when I read A Doll’s House by Ibsen. It’s about a mother that leaves her children. I came from a home where that would not be possible. But it is possible. That’s why the mother in Shotgun Stories hates her children. She blames them for her place in life. Their existence lowered her, in her mind. I was fascinated by the idea that there could be a mother character that would come to the conclusion first of what the inevitability of parenthood is. It made sense to me that a mother would be the one to understand the cycle of parenthood before the father, who has undeniably committed his entire life to the safety of his boy. It takes the mother to realize the cycle that they’re a part of.

I don’t think Michael’s character understands it fully or is willing to accept it fully until the boy gets out of the car. I think it’s important, but it’s also a big narrative risk. You’ve built this father-son story, the mother doesn’t come in for the first thirty minutes, and she’s tangential. Then you do this physical handoff where she’s the one who physically represents their position to their child at the end of the film. I had no idea if it would work, and for some people, I’m sure it doesn’t. I reason out, character-wise, why it would work out that way. Like I said, she’s the stronger of the two. I’m glad to hear you say you like her…because I like her.

That moment you mention where the boy gets out of the car broke my heart.
Good! That’s the one. David Fincher talks about how every movie should have an emotional punch in the gut. That was mine. I have one in each of my films. I’m glad you liked it.

Sevier (Adam Driver) is great, too.
Adam Driver is, in my opinion, going to be one of the most important actors of our generation, irrelevant of Star Wars. I think he’s that good. He’s that interesting. I want to make a detective movie with him really badly.

Why a detective movie?
Because I want to make a detective movie.

[laughs]
Because I’m a huge fan of Fletch. I just want to make a private eye movie.

There’s no away around it, and it pains me to believe it considering how big a fan I am of his previous films, but Jeff Nichols‘ much-anticipated Midnight Special is a disappointment. How a film that packs so much promise with its director, cast, and synopsis can leave such a flat impression is something that I’ll be mulling over during Berlinale and beyond. A story of a close-knit family with a boy who’s got special powers, on the run from a religious cult and the government, pulsates with potential. But not even the commanding Michael Shannon can save this film from being Nichols’ first major misfire.

As most disappointments often do, things start off so well. With zero exposition, we’re thrust into the action of Ray (Shannon) and Lucas (Joel Edgerton, at his understated best here) on-the-run with 8-year-old Alton (Jaeden Lieberher) and before the brilliant title sequence even comes up, we’ve already got a hundred questions. Why is the young lad wearing goggles? Who are these men? Why is the government, who is making this national news, after them? The mystery is instantly gripping, and even more so once the Ranch—a cult that believes Alton’s words are gospel—gets involved. They want him because they believe he’s their savior, the FBI and the NSA are after him because they think he’s a weapon, and all Roy wants to do is bring him back to his mother (Kirsten Dunst) and make sure he’s where he’s got to be on Friday, March 6th, a.k.a. Judgement Day. Oh, and the boy speaks in tongues, has telepathic connections with radio signals, and shoots blue light from his eyes.

Basically, you’d have to check your pulse if you weren’t totally sucked in by the halfway mark. But as the mystery begins to unravel further, delusions of grandeur set in. The big mystery, all those gripping question marks, amount to one big “OK, that’s it?” shrug by the end. Adam Stone’s cinematography is excellent, the performances are predictably stellar, Nichols expertly directs a couple of stand-out sequences, but the story gets lost in a vague haze of questionable decisions and a final climax utterly deflated of the emotional oomph it’s supposed to have. It has its grand familial Spielbergian flourishes, but Midnight Special ends up being disappointingly ordinary and surprisingly forgettable.

Rating:
6.5/10

Jeff Nichols’ latest film is now finally hitting the theaters after nearly a full year since its warm receptive premiere at the 2012 Cannes Film Festival. Mud centers on two teenage boys who end up befriending a fugitive that is looking to dodge the men who are out looking for him. Nichols elects to bring back the lead from his previous thriller (Take Shelter) Michael Shannon, but gives him a much smaller role in this film. The lead in Mud is given to Matthew McConaughey, who has been on an amazing ride of films as of late, and dominates the screen the moment he appears. This film just solidifies the fact that Jeff Nichols is a director to keep an eye out for in the future.

Mud (Matthew McConaughey) just can’t seem to catch a break. Just as he is getting settled into his new home in a boat that is stuck in a tree, the appropriately named Mud’s world is invaded by two young boys. The developing friendship is less than ideal, but both groups are sincere and honest with each other, and both have much to learn from the situation. Jeff Nichols finds a nice niche yet again with his original take on the coming of age story. Mud pulls many elements together nicely to mark a solid third film for the young director.

Ellis (Tye Sheridan) and Neckbone (Jacob Lofland) are young, poor, and best friends. The spend most of their free time working odd jobs with family members and dreaming of an easier life. They live on a river in the backwoods of Arkansas and despite their outcast appearance are intelligent and well meaning. While exploring one day, they stumble across Mud, a dirty, mysterious figure living in an unusual circumstance. The two groups decide to form a loose business relationship and the boys soon learn there might be a more dangerous side to their new friend.

Mud‘s screenplay blends a lot of nice dramatic elements and, despite some slow pacing, really hooks the viewer in. The acting is phenomenal on a lot of levels. Matthew McConaughey takes over the film the second he appears on screen. Mud looks like a cartoon character, but is portrayed with a nice subtlety that makes the audience instantly finds themselves sympathetic to his cause. He has made mistakes, but deep down is a good man. The two young friends are portrayed well, they are well meaning, but generally don’t understand the world around them. Their relationship with Mud becomes the most straight forward aspect of their life as they struggle through the tough life lessons of adolescence.

Mud suffers from uneven pacing and while the climax is thrilling and well executed, the final few minutes seem out of place compared with the themes and mood of the rest of the film. Despite some flaws, Mud is a clever film that really hits on a lot of positive notes. Jeff Nichols is steadily developing his craft, and definitely looks to be a big time director in the near future.

Emanuel and the Truth about Fishes

Sitting in the 9am screening of Francesca Gregorini’s Emanuel and the Truth about Fishes, I was surrounded by sleepy film fans and people uncertain of what to expect from what they were about to see. Myself, I had taken an interest in Gregorini’s film as soon as I saw the synopsis hit the Sundance web page late last year. I then watched the interview with her on the Sundance YouTube channel and became increasingly eager to see her story.

Emanuel and the Truth about Fishes was an incredible artistic, poignant and heartfelt tale drawing upon Gregorini’s personal issues about loss, guilt and pain whilst focusing on the courage to overcome individual trauma. The narrative also highlights the strong emotional connection humans can hold for each other, and in Emanuel’s case (portrayed by Kaya Scodelario), the effects on a troubled child longing to find a mother figure in her life.

Emanuel meets Linda (Jessica Biel), the mysterious lady who moves in next door, she is a new mother it would seem and Emanuel is instantly intrigued by this woman. Their relationship grows when Emanuel volunteers to babysit Linda’s newborn baby, and develop an affectionate bond towards each other.

Kaya Scodelario is the heart of this story, her emotion is so unbelievably real throughout the entire film – if not lead astray by Hollywood, her career will only continue to progress and her performances, excel. Many closed-minded men may disagree as the film was extremely feminine and focused on trauma only women can really relate to. Others that may focus more on dialogue could find faults within the screenplay as some criticized it as being very “written after attending a screenwriting seminar” feel. However, Emanuel and the Truth about Fishes is overall a fantastic achievement for Francesca Gregorini and an absolute pleasure to watch.

RATING: 9.4

A.C.O.D

Going into this film I undoubtedly had expectations in regards to it being a comedy, as the chosen cast were renowned for their humour. Adam Scott and Amy Poehler work as such an amazing comedic couple in Parks and Recreation that knowing their characters were the complete opposite of that in A.C.O.D, where Poehler is now Scott’s stepmother – I expected hilarity to ensue. Ultimately I was very disappointed with the lack of overall chemistry of the cast. That said however, I did enjoy A.C.O.D as it was a ‘good’ comedy; it just didn’t utilize the actors’ comedic potential enough.

Carter (Adam Scott) was unknowingly part of a research study focusing on observing Children of Divorce when he was younger; in fact the woman investigating this study, Dr Judith (Jane Lynch) wrote a book about him and other children involved. As Carter’s brothers wedding in announced and the preparation commences, Carter is responsible for getting his parents to be civil towards each other ready for the ‘big day’. This results in extremely comedic scenes and Carter eventually getting in touch with his old therapist, Dr Judith.

Scott was the perfect guy to represent the awkwardness of Carter’s character as his blunt and dry self-conscious sense of humour really highlights the effects of the trauma he is undergoing through his parents messy relationship.

Although A.C.O.D was not my favourite film of the day, nor is it one likely watch again – I’d certainly say it’s worth seeing at least once. It gives you the chance to see the diversity of Adam Scott’s abilities as an actor as they really shine through, and there are some real classic comedic moments that shouldn’t be overlooked.

RATING: 7.6

Mud

Mud is a story focused on a compassionate fugitive deserted on a lonely island surrounded by the Mississippi Rivers. This is until two adventurous young boys stumble across this rugged man whilst trying to salvage a lost boat. The two boys, Ellis (Tye Sheridan) and his best friend Neckbone (Jacob Lofland) are hesitant when they first meet Mud, as he is an unkempt looking man, whose sun dyed skin and worn out appearance gives them reason for caution – that and the fact he has a pistol tucked into his trousers. Mud introduces himself and tells the boys that he is waiting for a woman to meet him and asks if they could bring him food the next time they visit the island.

Tye under the impression that Mud is undergoing this hardship for love wants to help him and Neckbone being his best friend agrees to assist Tye in doing so. There are certain scenes that highlight the personalities of these two young boys and these are what made the film – their chemistry and on screen relationship has been likened to the young boys in Stand by Me.

Illustrating immersive imagination and extracting impeccable performances from all members of the cast, Jeff Nichols did a fantastic job representing a carefully constructed Deep South dramatic feature. Mud will do extremely well through it festival experiences, and will, without a doubt make it onto the big screen with huge success.

RATING: 8.6

Jeff Nichols’ Take Shelter is a gripping thriller about a man who is convinced that his dreams of an earth ending storm are a warning signs of impending doom. In almost every scene it is storming out which blend his dreams and reality together making it harder from him to tell what is real. The film has the right amount of unsettling suspense with such a genuine tone that makes it exceptionally eerie.

The opening shot of Take Shelter is of Curtis (Michael Shannon) staring up at dark clouds with yellowish rain splashing down on him. There is a storm coming or at least there is until Curtis wakes up from his dream. He is a caring father to his hearing-impaired daughter (Tova Stewart) and a loving husband to his wife Samantha (Jessica Chastain).

Curtis has a vivid dream about a tornado coming toward him while his dog is barking furiously at him. After a few moments the dog snaps the chain it was tied up to and attacks Curtis, viciously biting his forearm. Curtis wakes up terrified and is sweating profusely. The rest of the day he clutches his arm now and then as if he was actually bitten.

Following that nightmare he starts acting more paranoid. He builds a fence in the backyard for his dog (who is normally an inside dog). After putting up the fence he moves on to cleaning up the old storm shelter that may not have been used for many years. He stocks the shelves of the shelter with canned soup; he is beginning to take shelter.

His dreams continue to get more frequent and start involving his daughter. In two consecutive dreams he is trying to protect his daughter from zombie-like people trying to steal her away. Each time he wakes up from these dreams his reactions get worse. First he was just sweating, then he was wetting the bed, and finally he bleeds and nearly has a seizure before waking up.

Realizing that he may have a problem, he checks out a book from the library on mental illness. But he does not stop there; he visits the doctor to try to get help. After the doctor prescribes him with some sleeping pills, he asks Curtis if he has been up to see his mother lately. It seems like an irrelevant question at first but we come to find out that his mother suffers from paranoid schizophrenia.

Having just a simple shelter is not enough for Curtis. He becomes obsessed with the shelter. So much so that he takes out a bank loan in order to build an expansion to it, even hooking up running water and sewage. He borrows large tools for the project from his construction job which ends up getting him fired for doing so. His paranoia may not only cost him his job but also his family.

Michael Shannon has a breakdown scene that may be the best emotional scene of the year. His anxiety, obsession and paranoia increases with each passing scene which is played to near perfection by Shannon. His performance earned him well deserved recognition at the Independent Spirit Awards this year for Best Male Lead.

The role of Samantha must have come pretty natural to Jessica Chastain as she played a similar role as the wife and mother in the magnificent film The Tree of Life. However, this film is her role is centered on her dealing with her husband more so than her being a mother like The Tree of Life did. Overall she had an incredible year in films as she was also in The Help and Coriolanus.

Given the synopsis of Take Shelter, a man that envisions storms of apocalyptic magnitude, it took have easily took the path of laying it on thick with over the top science fiction ploys but thankfully instead it remained very conceivable. The plot may have been a little too thin for the 2 hour runtime. Take Shelter has a slow moving narrative in which the build-up surpasses the outcome. The final scene is quite satisfying though.