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Take Shelter

TAKE SHELTER (Jeff Nichols). See listing. Rating: NNNN


Michael Shannon (Oscar-nominated for his scene-stealing turn in Revolutionary Road) reunites with his Shotgun Stories director, Jeff Nichols, for this piercing character study. He plays Curtis, an apparently ordinary husband and father who starts having apocalyptic dreams every night.

Soon Curtis – whose work as a drilling supervisor is paying for his young daughter’s impending cochlear implant surgery – is growing ever more paranoid and fearful, and obsessively expanding the storm shelter in his backyard. Is it displaced economic anxiety? Does it have something to do with a family history of schizophrenia? Or is there a much more terrifying explanation?

Jessica Chastain has some fine moments as his confused wife, but Shannon’s wrenching performance is the film; he conveys the uncertain terror of a man who’d almost prefer to be losing his mind if it meant the rest of the world could keep going.

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