Welcome to the Dead Parade #11: Shannon's Ark

I wasn't sure what to expect from Take Shelter besides what the trailer suggested, but it turned out to fit in perfectly with my Dead Parade series, which I will give you the reasoning behind later.

For now, let's stick with the commercial representation of Take Shelter, starring Michael Shannon as a kind of modern day Noah. Ohio native Curtis (Shannon) has a steady construction job and a supportive wife, Samantha (Jessica Chastain, with too long a list of movies to her credit this past year). Ohio gets torrential rain on occasion, but rarely a tornado, so of course everyone (including Curtis himself at one point) thinks he's crazy when he starts upgrading the old bomb shelter in his backyard to prepare for a twister of apocalyptic proportions. And it doesn't help that Curtis' little home improvement project is in response to nightmares he's been having about the storm to come, or that Curtis' mother (Kathy Baker) was institutionalized for paranoid schizophrenia when he was ten.
Chastain did her part, playing Curtis' loving wife, but still unable to shake that loathsome quality she portrayed so well in The Help (someone get this woman a chocolate pie, stat!), and it was nice to see the anti-villain from last season's Sons of Anarchy (Ray McKinnon) in a bit part as Curtis' nosy brother, Kyle. But Shannon ruled this movie. I enjoyed Shannon's departure from the super-egotistical music promoter he played in The Runaways and the twitchy, drug-addicted biker of Machine Gun Preacher (reviewed here). As Curtis, Michael Shannon takes all that he has done before (the addict's fidgety scratching and social awkwardness, the promoter's abrasive, go-getter personality morphed into self-defensive mania, the paranoid schizophrenic mannerisms of his leading role in Bug) and pairs it with the cliche'd working father (disconnection from wife and daughter, mind constantly focused on work and money) and a hero's obsessive drive to protect everything, even at the cost of all he wishes to protect. The result, however derivative, is a complete character that comes out strong, especially in the many long absences of dialogue that pepper Take Shelter's two hour running time.
Shelter's length didn't bother me despite the slow pace of the film, thanks to Shannon's performance. Take Shelter was slow to be sure, but that deliberacy allowed for an unhurried busyness that is hard to achieve in these times of big budgets and constant run-gun-punch-explode theatrics. There is always something going on in Take Shelter, whether it be a fever dream, a heated dispute between man and wife, or simple construction work, but mid-budget effects and the solitary feel of Ohio kept everything subtle and intimate, and painted a story both familiar and engaging.
On to why I made this a Dead Parade selection: the dreams Curtis has feature an oily, yellowish rain that seems to drive the people and animals around him insane, so Take Shelter could easily be the precursor to a "something in the water," non-undead zombie flick like The Crazies (coming to a Dead Parade near you).

While writing this, I looked up Jessica Chastain on IMDB and decided her recent list of credits wasn't too long after all. So here it is:
Madagascar 3: Europe's Most Wanted
The Help
The Tree Of Life (reviewed here)
Coriolanus (reviewed here)
Take Shelter
The Debt
Lawless (in theaters August 29, 2012; see the trailer here)

I also thought it would be a good time for another edition of my old SW@ Ticket footnote,
If the Lyric Fits:
"Oh, a storm is threat'ning
My very life today
If I don't get some shelter
Oh yeah, I'm gonna fade away"
- The Rolling Stones, "Gimme Shelter"

Stay tuned, Ticketholders! A review of The Woodsman is just a shot away.