SPOILERS: Great idea. Tedious execution. I have always loved Michael Shannon, but Take Shelter is about 30 minutes too long. While strong in the lead, Shannon's performance cannot patch over the anti-climactic and often redundant build ups. The film also fails to create a point of normalcy from which the characters are detoured and this failure stunts the drama of Shannon's growing paranoia. It's like starting a song in the middle. From the beginning of the film a threat is looming and instead of a normal life gone wrong, the only conflict is whether it is real or not. Missing a beat IMO. I think the score is partly to blame for this. It keeps needlessly telling us something is amiss. And the dream sequences should have been obvious dreams instead of the typical alternate reality tricks. The bait and switch of the conclusion is pulled off well, but about 40 minutes late. The only moment I felt some life in the film was when Shannon explodes in front of his friends and neighbors. That was a relief. Then the storm comes and I said, OK, now we're getting somewhere. But it starts to go to sleep again in the build up to the exit of the storm cellar. During his wife's speech about 'this is how you come back to us', I found myself saying "just take the d*mned key already! There's nothing outside!" And sure enough there wasn't. They used a lot more film than they needed. Still love Shannon though. Not his fault the directors didn't know when to cut a scene.
Review of Take Shelter
