I saw this movie being reviewed on Film 2011 and thought it looked promising. Its about a man who has apocolyptic dreams and looks quite creepy. Anyone know much about it and when its out?
Just saw this on blu ray. Very well played and well handled - terrific atmosphere and performances. BUT.... [SPOILER-FREE SENTENCE] this is one of those movies that is defined by its ending, and it didn't quite work for me, thus leaving me more ambivalent about it than I thought I'd be when I was half way through (if that makes any sense). Anyone else catch up with it yet?
Superb film. One of the best of last year. Criminally under-rated especially Michael Shannon and Jessica Chastain. I liked the ending so it didn't really bother me. It's open to interpretation, you either take it one way or you take it the other. Doesn't really matter because everything leading upto the ending was still magnificent regardless.
Very spoilerific - definitely only click if you've seen the film. Please be careful of replying, make sure everything is spoiler-tagged!
IMO, it's difficult (not impossible) to pull off the ambiguous ending without it being a cop-out. There are two main interpretations to Take Shelter's ending - either it was real or a dream. The most obvious and popular interpretation is that it is real - his wife experienced the same oily rain. Now, never mind the implications of the mental illness story for a real interpretation - the old madness / genius axis is a valid and well trodden one - my problem with a real interpretation is that it was dramatically hugely unsatisfying. He has visions of the apocalypse and gets prepared for it. Yet when it comes, it is - presumably - nowhere near where he lived. Was it merely a huge tsunami, or the actual apocalpse? If it was the former, presumably he'd have been unaffected at home (maybe this was only 10 miles away, maybe it was 1,000 - we have no idea), if it was the latter then gas masks and a container would be futile anyway. In either case, Noah built the wrong ark in the wrong place.
Jessica Chastain was absolutely superb as the wife, and her role was very well written, avoiding many of the obvious cliches. Though distraught, upset and angry at what was going on, she also showed huge empathy - she stood by him, and in many ways believed in him too. But that ending muddied it all for me. Was he sorry because he completely misinterpreted his visions and took them right into the heart of them? Was he vindicated because there really was an apocalypse (of sorts)? Was she sorry that she hadn't believed in him, and yet he still got it horribly wrong? Perhaps all these ambiguities were exactly what Jeff Nichols intended, but it very much fell into the cop out and unsatisfying camp for me. I ended deflated - whichever way you choose to cut it, everything was futile. It was as if Noah's Ark was destroyed in a forest fire.
And such a shame. As everyone seems to have said, if Nichols had ended the movie after they got out of the shelter, that would have been absolutely fine. I wouldn't have minded a purely rational ending, or a supernatural one, or even an ambiguous one - IF the ambiguity made coherent sense. For me, it didn't. I think they should have taken a deep breath at the edit suite, and relegated the last 5 minutes to an intriguing DVD extra.
The storms are a manifestation of his mental illness and the fear that it will take his family away from him. In the end his wife is aware of his mental illness and chooses to support and stand by him thus the manifestation in the final scenes with her aware of another episode approaching.
The storms are a manifestation of his mental illness and the fear that it will take his family away from him. In the end his wife is aware of his mental illness and chooses to support and stand by him thus the manifestation in the final scenes with her aware of another episode approaching.
I did a search last night, and that definitely that is not the most population interpretation, so definitely ambiguous at best. FWIW:
That interpretation doesn't make sense to me on any level. She can't choose to inhabit his dreams. So either he is dreaming that she is standing by him - which is kinda meaningless - or she is now dreaming it too, which doesn't make any sense at all. And as if THAT wasn't enough, it's also unconvincing in that we witness clearly something that is more evocative of an apocalypse than anything we've seen before, which is just personal threat to his family. Nope, don't by that one at all!
Comments
i saw the film 2011 review too & it looks promising, although it also looks a bit like Signs, i hope it's better than that
Jessica Chastain was absolutely superb as the wife, and her role was very well written, avoiding many of the obvious cliches. Though distraught, upset and angry at what was going on, she also showed huge empathy - she stood by him, and in many ways believed in him too. But that ending muddied it all for me. Was he sorry because he completely misinterpreted his visions and took them right into the heart of them? Was he vindicated because there really was an apocalypse (of sorts)? Was she sorry that she hadn't believed in him, and yet he still got it horribly wrong? Perhaps all these ambiguities were exactly what Jeff Nichols intended, but it very much fell into the cop out and unsatisfying camp for me. I ended deflated - whichever way you choose to cut it, everything was futile. It was as if Noah's Ark was destroyed in a forest fire.
And such a shame. As everyone seems to have said, if Nichols had ended the movie after they got out of the shelter, that would have been absolutely fine. I wouldn't have minded a purely rational ending, or a supernatural one, or even an ambiguous one - IF the ambiguity made coherent sense. For me, it didn't. I think they should have taken a deep breath at the edit suite, and relegated the last 5 minutes to an intriguing DVD extra.
I did a search last night, and that definitely that is not the most population interpretation, so definitely ambiguous at best. FWIW: