Take Shelter (2011)
Directed by Jeff Nichols
Plagued by a series of apocalyptic visions, a young husband and father questions whether to shelter his family from a coming storm, or from himself.
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21 films that influenced Take Shelter
What critics say influenced Take Shelter
Like Carol White , the central, unglued character of Todd Haynes s Safe (1995) who is allergic to the 20th century, blue-collar worker Curtis is haunted by one of the looming terrors of the 21st: financial ruin.
The drama of Take Shelter resembles Todd Haynes' Safe in its real-world fear and paranoia, but it's warmer, more poignant and more suspenseful than that 1995 psychodrama.
This film bothers me in the same way the Todd Haynes film "Safe" bothers me, or the way Lodge Kerrigan's work bothers me.
The obvious comparison to Take Shelter is Todd Haynes’s Safe, in which a woman (Julianne Moore) is slowly dying from modern life.
He's clearly learned lessons from Val Lewton , Wise 's " The Haunting ," and Polanski 's " Repulsion ," not to mention the films of Tarkovsky (some of the more intense nightmare imagery could come from the Russian filmmaker's " The Mirror " or " The Sacrifice ," and the deaf daughter here brought to mind a similar character in " Stalker ").
It is one of the most captivating and overwhelming portrayals of mental illness in a domestic setting since John Cassavetes’s A Woman Under the Influence in 1974.
He's clearly learned lessons from Val Lewton , Wise 's " The Haunting ," and Polanski 's " Repulsion ," not to mention the films of Tarkovsky (some of the more intense nightmare imagery could come from the Russian filmmaker's " The Mirror " or " The Sacrifice ," and the deaf daughter here brought to mind a similar character in " Stalker ").
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He's clearly learned lessons from Val Lewton , Wise 's " The Haunting ," and Polanski 's " Repulsion ," not to mention the films of Tarkovsky (some of the more intense nightmare imagery could come from the Russian filmmaker's " The Mirror " or " The Sacrifice ," and the deaf daughter here brought to mind a similar character in " Stalker ").
He's clearly learned lessons from Val Lewton , Wise 's " The Haunting ," and Polanski 's " Repulsion ," not to mention the films of Tarkovsky (some of the more intense nightmare imagery could come from the Russian filmmaker's " The Mirror " or " The Sacrifice ," and the deaf daughter here brought to mind a similar character in " Stalker ").
I think master of suspense Alfred Hitchcock would have approved of Take Shelter, especially with its visual allusions to The Birds and its beautifully ironic finale (which will likely polarize audiences).
There is a bit of “The Shining” with his nightmares, especially when Samantha enters them.
He’s terrific, but it’s a little like Jack Nicholson in “The Shining” – we know things are going to get bad right from the start.
Casting Shannon as a guy who might be going insane is like casting Jack Nicholson as Jack Torrance in The Shining; ie it doesn’t seem like The Overlook has to do too much to bring Mr. Torrance over to the crazy side.
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He's clearly learned lessons from Val Lewton , Wise 's " The Haunting ," and Polanski 's " Repulsion ," not to mention the films of Tarkovsky (some of the more intense nightmare imagery could come from the Russian filmmaker's " The Mirror " or " The Sacrifice ," and the deaf daughter here brought to mind a similar character in " Stalker ").
That movie was produced by Nichols' very successful North Carolina School of the Arts classmate, director David Gordon Green ("George Washington," "Pineapple Express"), but it never received a Memphis theatrical screening, so "Take Shelter" may represent an introduction to Nichols for most local moviegoers.