The wonderfully unique and beautifully shot TAKE SHELTER features performances by two gifted actors and images that will stay with you well beyond the theater. It's not easy to watch – the main character, Curtis (Michael Shannon) wakes gasping from nightmares of apocalyptic scenarios, people scrabbling for his daughter and leviathan-sized storms, and his life and relationships spiral from the envy of others to what may be the undiagnosed beginnings of schizophrenia. Indeed, the movie teeters on the brink of madness or annihilation or both, framed by a foreboding score full of weird, discordant notes, Curtis's agitation and spaced-out distraction, news of a chemical spill nearby and visions of birds falling from the sky, levitating furniture and furious twisters materializing on the horizon.
Working-class Curtis LaForche has a beautiful, loving wife Samantha (the incredible Jessica Chastain) and a six year-old, deaf daughter Hannah. His horrifying dreams seem to carry over into his waking life as he shudders at nonexistent thunderclaps or experiences excruciating pain from a dog bite that never actually happened. All these events convince him that doom is nigh. So he prepares for it, but doesn’t inform Samantha, first buying a shipping crate and then burying it in the back yard while she's selling hand-stitched wares at a local fair. He sinks every last bit of the already struggling family's savings into the underground shelter, and then takes a risky home loan to continue to finance it. He stocks up on canned food and gas masks. He installs electricity and plumbing and spends his nights there, eyes shut tight in thought. Hell does eventually break loose – not with the weather but those close to him, and most of all the woman he loves, in pain over being misled then ignored.
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