A man with storms in his head

A professor at my department who studied neuroscience, once told us something you have probably heard elsewhere: If you think you're crazy or getting crazy, that means you are not crazy because crazy people do not know that they are crazy. This sounds like the famous dilemma in Joseph Heller's "Catch-22." I thought it was useful advice for students who had to deal with lots of pressure and stress in the academic process. It could also be good advice for the hero of "Take Shelter" (2011), because he thinks at first something is wrong with his head, but cannot ignore what disturbs deeply him. He tries to quell his mental turbulence as much as he can, but is transformed into a more disturbed man obsessed with visions attacking him every night. It is possible that he himself is the threat to the family he wants to protect, not the catastrophe of epic proportion he fears.

What Curtis (Michael Shannon) experiences in his dreams is very frightening indeed. In the opening scene, he sees big storm clouds gathering in the sky while dark, thick rain droplets are falling. Other disturbing moments follow in subsequent nightmares. His dog suddenly attacks him and bites his arm. He and his daughter find themselves attacked by strangers as if they are in some sort of zombie movie. His house is impacted by unknown forces. And he begins to see and hear disturbing things even when he is really awake during day.

Though he's agitated by dreams with apocalyptic undertones, he tries to maintain his daily life in a nice little town somewhere in Ohio while searching for the solution to his problem. He knows it's possible that he is getting crazy. His mother was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia, so he may be suffering from a similar mental illness due to genetic factors. He checks several books on psychology at the library. He also meets a counselor to get more advice and help. He is prescribed with medicines for alleviating his symptoms.

But his dreams still visit him and they continue to exert sinister effects on his mind. There are of course several "it was only a dream" moments in the film, but director/writer Jeff Nichols makes these clichés into something truly terrifying with effective CGIs. The dream scenes look so vivid and realistic that we can understand why Curtis is frightened by the possibilities they ominously imply. You know it's not real, but you can see how excruciating it is to him when you see his terrified face, his teeth clenched tightly during one of his nightmares. This is scarier than what's happening before his eyes.

Michael Shannon's increasingly anxious performance, which was unjustly not nominated for Best Actor Oscar this year, is crucial for the mounting suspense in the film. I noticed Shannon for the first time in Oliver Stone's "World Trade Center" (2006), and he has been memorable as intense or disturbed characters in several films including William Friedkin's "Bug" (2006), in which he and Ashley Judd plunge themselves into the pit of madness with no compromise, and "Revolutionary Road" (2008), where he shatteringly trembles his co-actors as the truth teller of the story.

In this film, you can easily imagine Shannon in the remade version of "The Dead Zone" (1983), where Christopher Walken plays an ordinary man unnerved by the disturbing visions only he can see. Shannon conveys to us the seething instability inside his character's mind through the quiet but uncomfortable intensity exuding from his face. Curtis is a nice family man we can like, but he finds himself helplessly unhinged by what's eating him inside. He wants to talk about his woes, but it is not easy for him to talk openly about them, because he has the responsibility to support his family as the husband and father. His daughter with hearing problems fortunately gets a good chance to have a cochlear implant surgery, and he is well aware that his mental problem may ruin this good fortune.

He attempts to take care of his problems by himself through getting rid of the sources of the fears induced by his dreams. He builds a makeshift pen for holding his dog, and then, not satisfied with that measure, he eventually gives it to his brother (their brief conversation scene suggests the bitter mutual feeling about their unhappy past). Because he is afraid of the possibility of a massive tornado, which can really occur suddenly in his region, he begins to renovate and expand the storm shelter in his backyard. He worries about toxic gas, and then he purchases gas masks and puts them in the shelter.

However, this does not give him any peace of his mind. Moreover, while his dreams move toward fears more personal than before, his behavior deteriorates relationships with others. As a close friend, his co-worker Dewart (Shea Whigham) willingly helps Curtis when he wants to use equipment from their construction company without permission--even though he can be fired along with Curtis for that. However, like Curtis' wife, he begins to sense something is wrong with his friend, and Curtis's paranoia puts a wedge into their friendship. That eventually leads him to the breaking point; Shannon delivers one hell of overwhelmingly rampant moment, which still shocked me during a second viewing.

Curtis' wife Samantha (Jessica Chastain), is in lots of frustration because of her husband's inexplicable behavior. She isn't mad about his trouble, but is angry because he puts their family into a financially precarious position without any discussion with her. The horror in Curtis' dreams may only exist in his head, but the horror of losing a job along with health insurance is terrifyingly real to his family as well as him. When I learned about how scary it is to lose a job in US through a book around 10 years ago, it only came to me as a mere fact of American life, but now it becomes more real to me through several recent movies including this film.

Jessica Chastain had a dazzling breakthrough last year with a bunch of stellar performances in the movies including "The Tree of Life" (2011) and "The Help" (2011), and, in "Take Shelter," she is the warm, understanding heart of the story, as she was in "The Tree of Life." Samantha feels hurt and angered because of her husband's recklessness, and she does not hide her resentment from her husband when she thinks enough is enough. Nevertheless, she decides to stay besides him for their uncertain and messy future, although her husband's mental disturbance now even casts a shadow of doubt over their relationship.