Review: Take Shelter

I first heard about this movie via Eric on Pretty Much It a month or so ago and seeing that he was so passionate about the film I wanted to give it a try. I had it in my Netflix list and when I saw it was available on iTunes I decided to just rent it on there and watch it now. I am very glad I did.

The movie is basically the story of a man named Curtis who lives in a rural town in Ohio. He has a wife and a young deaf daughter and he begins having hallucinations and dreams involving his family and his town. He has a family history of Schizophrenia and begins to worry, to himself, that he may be falling down that rabbit hole. He takes comfort in building himself a better storm shelter in his backyard to protect himself and his family from the storm he keeps hallucinating and dreaming about. It stars Michael Shannon (The Runaways, Pearl Harbor) as Curtis and Jessica Chastain (The Help, The Tree of Life) as his wife, Samantha.



Without spoiling anything because I also would love for people to see this movie and go in with a fairly clean mind, I just want to say that it was beautifully shot and acted. The plot was actually very good despite how simple it sounds. Curtis' dreams and hallucinations are very haunting after the fact. It's been about an hour since I finished watching and I am a little uneasy. It was fantastic. And I also have to say, agreeing with Eric, that I have absolutely no clue how this movie was 100% shut out from the Oscars. Michael Shannon deserves a Best Actor nomination, if not the win, for his performance. Fuck what Clooney did in The Descendents and what Pitt did in Moneyball. What Michael Shannon did with his character in Take Shelter was something amazing and it is truly a shame no one seemed to want to recognize that.

Seriously go give this movie a chance, guys. It is on iTunes, Netflix, etc.. It is really good.