Take Shelter (2011)

Michael Shannon is no stranger to expertly playing haunted/tortured outsiders as evident in “My Son, My Son” and “Revolutionary Road.” In the taunt, purposefully slow-paced drama “Take Shelter,” he plays an Average Joe in Ohio named Curtis who works in aggregates, loves his wife (Jessica Chastain, great as always) and dotes on his deaf daughter. All is apple-pie normal until Curtis begins having profoundly disturbing nightmares and visions of violent storms with doom-laden clouds and thick and brownish-yellow rainwater. The dreams/visions grow more intense and Curtis fears schizophrenia, with good reason. His mother was struck with the disorder in her mid-30s. Director and writer Jeff Nichols’ film is a stunner, from the minute details of daily life to the way small towns blanket fear over a person to fit in and be quiet, go to church or else. “Shelter” nails two closing high marks -– Curtis’ meltdown at a public dinner and a tornado alert -– before a devastating two-punch finale, one inevitably sad, the latter forcing the viewer to question all that has happened. Tall and gangly, Shannon’s raging performance here is frightening and fragile. A