On Take Shelter

Take Shelter is an American film, written and directed by Jeff Nichols. The film follows the life of a small town family man struggling with a form of schizophrenia that he is acutely aware of but unable to prevent. This level of realism that is applied here makes this story a fresh and fascinating approach to mental illness. The title not only metaphorically refers to the nature in which the protagonist tries to hide from and prevent what he sees as an inevitable fall into schizophrenia (a disease his mother suffered from), but also to the bomb shelter in his back garden, which becomes the tangible object on to which he expends his growing uncertainty. In this case, the uncertainty that plagues the mind of the protagonist is that of a coming apocalyptic storm; again another reference to the title. Even though the film deals with a very specific mental illness that manifests itself in ways that require some special effects, the film is rooted in a realism that spans familial adversity and financial worries, an increasingly relevant metaphor for the coming storm we see in horrifying detail. Fortunately for Nichols, he found two of America’s best working actors to tell this story. Michael Shannon and Jessica Chastain are both incredibly capable of communicating a range of emotions with the slightest of movements. And, with the slow long takes in which Nichols frames his film, his actors are given space and time to grab the audience and drag them into this engrossing story. Take Shelter is one of the finest American film of the year.