Take Shelter

Curtis, a construction worker in Ohio, starts dreaming of storms that drop yellow rain and send flocks of birds falling out of the sky. He takes out a loan to expand the old shelter in his back yard, risks his job and pushes his family away. Jeff Nichols builds the whole film on a deliberate uncertainty: is Curtis a prophet, or is he arriving at the schizophrenia his mother was diagnosed with. Michael Shannon's face is worth more than the film's entire budget. Roger Ebert praised how he could hold the surface of a stable husband and father while his eyes carried something deeply uneasy. It was made for 4.7 million dollars, premiered at Sundance and took the Critics' Week Grand Prix at Cannes. Nichols has no objection to arguments about the ending, but his own measure is different. What the ending has to do, he has said, is put these two people on the same page again, not settle whether the apocalypse is real. Who it is for: viewers who like anxiety handled as a domestic problem rather than a genre. Who it is not for: anyone who needs a clear answer. The film withholds one on purpose.