Curtis (Michael Shannon) is a man who is focused on his family - his lovely wife, Samantha (Jessica Chastain) and his deaf daughter, Hannah (Tova Stewart). The family has been struggling financially as of late, as Hannah is in need of a very expensive surgery to restore her hearing. Samantha works to sell her hand-stitched textiles at a flea market on the weekend to supplement the family funds, with the bulk of her money going into a savings for their annual summer vacation to Myrtle Beach, while Curtis is a supervisor for a construction company.
Things start to deteriorate when Curtis begins having some strange dreams of a menacing storm approaching. At first, he just dreams of the storm, but then the dreams progress and torment him with images of birds creating strange formations in the sky and mysterious people attacking his home. He initially sees the family doctor and requests sedatives which do seem to help, but as the visions intensify, he finds himself obsessed with his storm shelter and the need to protect his family from whatever is approaching.
He begins a massive project to expand and prepare the storm shelter, taking out a loan without telling Samantha and jeopardizing the family's already tenuous finances. Curtis is also plagued because his mother was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia in her early 30's and he fears this same illness may be materializing in him. What's worse, his close friend and co-worker Dewart (Shea Whigham) turns on him and rallies those around them to believe Curtis is going insane, pushing Curtis further from those who care about him and deeper into his spiral into possible insanity. When an actual storm does come and he gets Samantha and Hannah into the shelter, he fears ever coming out because of what lies on the other side of the door. Only when he is able to face his greatest fear, through Samantha's love, strength and belief in him, can he come to terms with what has been happening.
Take Shelter is a deep introspective into one man's struggle with his sanity and how he copes with it. Is Curtis a modern day Noah or is he simply losing his mind? While there are a few very interesting hallucination scenes, such as the odd bird formations and one where a tornado strikes the house and all of the furniture simply lifts into the air as if suspended in time, overall Take Shelter is just really slow. It's a 2 hour movie and I found myself just wishing something - anything - would happen.
Special features are slim, including two deleted scenes, commentary with Writer/Director Jeff Nichols and Michael Shannon, a Q&A Panel with Michael Shannon and Shea Whigham and finally, a behind-the-scenes featurette, which was the most interesting of the bunch.
While the movie does conclude nicely and you do get some closure as to what truly was happening with Curtis, it just wasn't satisfying enough, because I had anticipated a more intense film experience. Mind you, Shannon's performance as the troubled Curtis and Samantha as his stoic wife are fantastic. The acting is great and really compelling; just don't go into this film thinking it is going to be a spine-tingler, because it most certainly is not. If you approach it as a weird drama about one man's personal struggle, then you will enjoy it.
