Good Morning Lovelies, 

Michael Shannon is one of those actors who you never really hear much about, but then suddenly appears in a powerhouse performance that makes sure you never forget him. In his latest release, Take Shelter, his acting is on another level, as he works every element of the script into a piece of art.

Starring alongside the equally brilliant Jessica Chastain, Take Shelter features the pair as husband and wife team, Curtis and Samantha. Living in Ohio, the pair have a quiet life until Curtis starts to have nightmarish dreams about apocalyptic events such as storms. As his wife worries for his mental health, Curtis does everything he can do to protect his family. Building a shelter in the garden, he begins to miss work to save his family, leading to tensions between all those around him. Until the events, he imagined start to actually happen.

In a clever mixture of making audiences wonder what is real or not, the film uses the storms on screen to match the storms happening within Curtis’ mind. As one element starts to break down under the pressure, the storm highlights or is scripted to show that pressure. Everything in Curtis’ life is one and there is no running from it. Only hiding in the safe place, he has created.

Director and writer Jeff Nichols has done something very similar to The Quiet Place. He has made a film that leaves you wondering what you would do. What does every situation mean and when it comes to the ending how it all really wraps up. You want to know that these characters are safe, but also that they can make sure as an audience we get that safe feeling restored at the end. You don’t by the way with this one.

With this clever mixture of script, filmmaking and characterisation, the film is a perfect puzzle for Chastain and Shannon to work on together and bring to life the characters. They join together in a partnership that will and should inspire other filmmakers to put them together more in features, as they are on-screen powerhouses. On a giant proportion.

There so, with all this coming together too well, the film won’t have to take shelter from this…