I went to the movies this past weekend. I wanted a dose of Kevin Spacey so I went to see Margin Call. But before that I went to see Take Shelter. I was intrigued by the previews, but also by the title. There is something almost intimate and oh so inviting to me when you say or read “take shelter.” I almost imagine someone telling me “take shelter, my love, protect yourself.”
I was blown away by the movie. Specifically I was blown away by Michael Shannon’s portrayal of Curtis LaForche. Michael’s work is intense and brooding and self-contained like the small Ohio town where he and his family live. From the outside, like his friend Dewart says, Curtis has a good life, but things start unraveling and feeling uncomfortable when he begins having terrible nightmares that he can’t shake off. They persist and haunt him in his waking hours like the pain he feels when in one of them he is viciously bitten by his dog.
But Curtis is also a practical man moved by the self-imposed drive that he will never leave his family. Never. His mom had a psychotic break in her mid thirties (Curtis’s age now) and left him alone when he was ten. He has promised himself he will never expose his own family to that pain.
He decides to face his nightmares with effort and purpose. He checks books about mental illness from his public library and makes an attempt at self-diagnosis. But the dread and the threat of imminent danger he sees in the sky above do not really subside. He begins to presage a storm like no other and decides to improve the tornado shelter in his backyard incurring into a debt that the family cannot afford.
His wife Samantha and his daughter Hannah are strong presences in the movies. Hannah is a six year deaf child whose parents are looking into a cochlear implant that is only possible through Curtis’s medical insurance from work. This procedure is not a sure thing, especially when Curtis is fired from his job.
The movie captivated me. I kept waiting for something supernatural to happen or some aliens to start showing up (my husband’s perspective). But the story insists in keeping it real and to be something utterly possible. Curtis knows he is not right in the head and looks for assistance, but his fears permeate his every act.
The final scene is especially powerful. Following medical advice, the family gets away from the storm shelter for some days and goes to the beach. Little Hannah sees it first. She tells her dad it’s a storm. He looks out to sea. We can’t see what he sees, yet you know it’s something huge. When he finally catches his wife Sam’s eyes, you can see them holding a silent conversation from afar, like married couples do, asking her if what he is seeing is true or a product of his weakened mind, since we all know he can’t be trusted. She nods at him, validating whatever it is he’s seeing. He picks up his daughter and goes to her. Then you see what they’re seeing and it ends with Samantha saying “Okay.”
When I think about this movie and then think about Margin Call, I can’t really help but ask is Curtis really that crazy? I mean we do live in a crazy world; we can’t deny that or hide from that. Here you have a hard-working guy, loving and devoted to his family that has to make do with counselors because he cannot afford to see the medical staff who might be professionally trained to help him, a guy who loses his job and with it the possibility of affording the medical care his little girl truly needs.
Then you have the arrogant characters of Margin Call who flippantly talk about making anywhere from $250,000 to $2 million plus a year in Wall Street. The movie tries to explain the 2008 housing bubble burst. Now if the average salary for regular folks is what? 4OK, maybe 60K a year, isn’t it crazy that a 23 year old kid makes 250K, and we see little kids like Hannah or ill people like Curtis go unattended. I really don’t know if Curtis’s paranoia might be totally unwarranted.
Anyway, as I said before, I am no movie critic, but in my mind Mr. Shannon has become a heavyweight Oscar contender and shown me what acting at its best looks like.
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