SHELTER (eOne, 2010) D: Måns Mår lind, Björn Stein, w/ Julianne Moore, Jonathan Rhys Meyers. Rating: NNN DVD package: NN Rating: NNN
Co-directors Måns Mårlind and Björn Stein call Shelter a horror movie, but it has nothing to do with the usual stalk-and-slash and everything to do with smart plotting and well-drawn characters.
Julianne Moore plays Cara Harding, a psychologist who is convinced that multiple personality disorder is always faked. Her father, also a shrink, disagrees and thinks he’s found the patient to prove it: David, a gentle guy from the Appalachians who becomes Adam, an aggressive guy from New York. Later on, he manifests other identities. All of them, Cara learns, are murder victims.
Shelter goes for the slow buildup of tension via claustrophobic compositions and a spare score, so you have time to savour solid performances by Moore and Jonathan Rhys Meyers, who does a believable job with the multiple personalities. In the supporting cast, Jeffrey DeMunn as Cara’s father and Frances Conroy, David’s mother, take novel approaches to what could’ve been stereotyped roles.
Writer Michael Cooney makes a couple of fascinating remarks in the cast and crew interviews. The rest have little to offer but the usual mutual praise.
EXTRAS Cast and crew interviews, on-set footage. Widescreen. English, French audio. English subtitles.
