Take Shelter (And Why It's My Favorite Film of 2011)

(I would have written more, but I decided not to get too specific, in case someone is interested in watching this.)

Plenty of films delve into the world of mental illness.  There's A Beautiful Mind, which is about accomplishing great things even with the biggest of obstacles in your way. There's Fight Club, which depicts someone whose illness ultimately redefines who they are. There's Awakenings, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Rain Man, Punch-Drunk Love, Pi, Me, Myself, and Irene, and plenty others. None of these, though, are really for people with mental illnesses. These films are about the mental illness itself and ultimately are for those who are interested in what having a mental illness is like.  To see through the eyes of someone who is suffering to better understand them. (For those really interested in feeling what it is like to suffer through depression, look no further than Lars von Trier's Antichrist and Melancholia  because holy crap.)

Take Shelter isn't like those films, though. This is ultimately a film for those who suffer through mental illness, and that is why it's such a great, unique film.

Take Shelter is about Curtis (played by the subtle, yet wonderful Michael Shannon), a construction worker with a loving family including a deaf daughter, who starts having nightmares with the largest and most ominous storm cloud you have ever seen as the back drop. These nightmares are not horror stories, terrifying and fearful, but filled with dread and anxious waiting, just like the film itself, which is slow paced and brooding. Very quickly, these nightmares seem to merge into his waking life. (In one dream he is attacked by his own dog and his arm is ripped to shreds. From the time he wakes up until he gets off work he can still  feel the pain in his arm.) We eventually learn that his family has had a history with paranoid schizophrenia, and Curtis starts to believe he has inherited the disease.

A storm is coming for Curtis (both symbolically and physically), a storm to end the world, and what does he do as a response? Keep his worries to himself and start to rebuild the storm shelter (again, symbolically and physically) in his back yard (which is only one of the actions that can only be described as logically illogical and that affect his family in a negative way).

The synopsis makes it seem like Take Shelter should belong in the list above, however, much of the film is ambiguous concerning Curtis's illness (Is he ill? Will his vision of an apocalyptic storm come true?), and the film never directly answers any questions the audience might have. However, like I said, this film isn't about the illness. It's about people who aren't sure how to deal with their illness. It's about how to cope with it and where to put your "shelter" or support. It's about getting better. It is not a coincidence that the film's title is in the form of a command.

Hint

What makes this film great is that it doesn't treat mental illness as a study. It's not about the symptoms of paranoid schizophrenia. It's not about what a person with paranoid schizophrenia is like. Instead, there's a message here. A message for those in Curtis's position. As for Curtis himself? His problems aren't going to go away, but that doesn't mean he can't find a way to make it manageable with a little help