Director Jeff Nichols made a name for himself with a superb piece of audience placement. His breakout film, Take Shelter was a maelstrom of Michael Shannon paranoia, whipped up with apocalyptic verve. Reality was an expertly placed bait and switch that lifted his film higher even than the career cementing performances from Shannon and Jessica Chastain.
With his latest, Midnight Special, Nichols again employs a very specific placement of character and reality. This time though, he steps deeper into the void. Where Take Shelter had us on the periphery looking in and wondering what we're seeing (or not seeing, to Shannon's endless frustration); in Midnight Shelter we learn very early on that we are dealing with something beyond our ken. We're asked to accept the wondrously frightening existence of Alton Meyer (Jaeden Lieberher), a kid with lazar eyes, glow in the dark E.T. hands and the ability to tear satellites out of the sky, but we're asked to accept it on face value. Neither we, nor the characters in play, Alton's father, Roy (Shannon), his mother, Sarah (Kirsten Dunst) and roped-in patrolman, Lucas (Joel Edgerton), know what the deal is. They only know they need to keep him safe - and get him to some very specific coordinates at a very specific time.
In terms of reality building, Nichols' elided exposition is both brave (in this climate of explain everything) and enticing. Despite its sci-fi leanings (think Starman meets a reverse E.T. the Extraterrestrial), Nichols world is grounded by how those on screen relates to the super-normal, with explicit nods given to the fact they nobody has any explanation for what is going on. Roy and Sarah are typical parents, out to do what is best for their kid, no matter the cost. The cult where he's been housed places religious significance on the kid, treating him as a precious harbinger. The FBI are freaked by Alton's ability to speak in classified secrets and set out to capture him.
Nowhere is Nichols' expository stinginess on better display than in Adam Driver's befuddled "expert", who gives next to nothing on the explanation front. What he brings, like Shannon, like Dunst, like Edgerton, is compassion. And it is this blind devotion that gets Lieberher's oddly cold performance over the line. He, himself, is an enigma, and his growth towards self-knowledge, which he expresses with detachment, only adds to the film's curiosity.
Midnight Special, though ultimately a simple piece of cinema, is rewardingly enigmatic. Nichols and his regular cinematographer, Adam Stone, have gone at the genre from a grown up angle but still tethered the tone to its '80s forebears. They're assisted ably by a moody score from David Wingo, which complements both the film's tension and the compassionate heart that comes out to beat when its time for the climactic round of goodbyes.
And Dunst gives good goodbye.
Midnight Special won't find a lot of love out there but those willing to step into the known unknown will find an intriguing take on nostalgia, recreated with surprising emotional efficiency. I'm one of them.
★★★★
Trailer:
No comments:
Post a Comment