Oftentimes, movies about mental illness use the character’s affliction to goof the audience. Shutter Island (which my mother fell asleep during) and A Beautiful Mind, for example, used schizophrenia to pull the rug out on the viewer. It’s a great tool that’s also pretty cheap when you think about it (I know Beautiful Mind was based on a true story, shaddap). All those people the character was talking to and all the crazy shit he saw was a hallucination! GOTCHA, SUCKERS!

As we watch Curtis (Michael Shannon), the protagonist of Take Shelter, grow increasingly schizo, there are graciously no “Oh Shit!” moments to fool the audience. Director Jeff Nichols (Shotgun Stories) uses Curtis’ schizophrenia and his visions of an impending storm of doomsday proportions to carefully build up miles of suspenseful anxiety. You could argue that the ending is a “twist,” but watching it unfurl I just felt it was a fitting finale for a genre bending thriller about a father’s mental collapse and how he tries to keep his family safe.

Michael Shannon plays Curtis LaForge, an blue-collar Ohio husband whose ominous dreams of an apocalyptic storm are growing increasingly vivid and begin to carry over into his waking life, which is a pretty great life. His loving wife Samantha (Jessica Chastain) sells homemade curtains and his 6-year-old daughter Hannah is finally scheduled for corrective surgery for her hearing loss. At his job at a quarry, Curtis gets to work with his close friend Dewart (Shea Whigham) and is being trained as a manager. This fulfilling life of his is all disrupted by his disturbing visions and increasingly dark hallucinations.

After talking to his mother, who was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia in her 30s, Curtis decides the only route to go is counseling and sedatives. He also decides to expand the existing storm shelter in his backyard and stock up on everything from paper towels to gas masks. His paranoid preparations begin taking a toll on his family and employment.

While there are some powerful moments of dread in the film, the majority of it exists in moments of familial intimacy. This is where Nichols excels as a storyteller. Moments between husband and wife, co-workers, and between mother and daughter are all filmed with compassionate realism. Curtis is a complex character to take on – his countenance shifts rapidly from composed paranoia to madness to fear – and Shannon handles it all with convincing conviction.

This is Shannon’s second collaboration with Nichols. They first worked together on Nichols’ 2007 debut film about a brotherly blood-fued, Shotgun Stories. Shannon’s a beast – literally like a Frankenstein monster of conflicting emotions that he can express in his eyes alone. And when he rages out it’s terrifying! Jessica Chastain, who’s been in seven features this year including Tree of Life, is devastating as Curtis’ wife Samantha. It’s heartbreaking to watch her as she witnesses the man she loves turn into someone else.

The final scene is left up to interpretation, but whether or not Curtis is totally insane isn’t the point of the film. The scene before the finale, where Curtis’ family finally does “take shelter,” brings home more of the message I think Nichols is trying to convey: that family will endure the storm. Even if those storms are just in your head.

- Oh Mars