Take Shelter is set in the empty, rural landscape of Ohio. Here, a family is situated in a small house, in an eerily quiet neighbourhood. The isolation of this location makes the film’s plot line more effective, which charts the descent of the family’s head, Curtis, into what seems to be schizophrenia. Whilst Curtis battles with nightmarish visions of incoming storms, he remains convinced that his fears are justified. In order to tackle his paranoia, Curtis alienates himself from his family and friends as he sets out to re-build his family’s shelter at the cost of his savings, job, and  sanity.

Michael Shannon effectively plays the psychotic protagonist of Curtis. He remains very convincing as someone suffering from mental malaise.

The film’s cinematography is also powerful. A sense of unprotected openness is captured through the isolation of the family’s small home. Its size sits at odds with the largeness of the surrounding landscape. This contrast is a metaphor for Curtis himself in the sense that he remains a man against the world, trying to convince others of the palpable dangers of the storms he perceives whilst everyone else believes he is insane.

The contrast between Curtis, his family and the huge, yet uncontrollable forces of nature itself is further contrasted with the claustrophobia ofa sequence in which the family finally enters their newly-built shelter.

This latter sequence is very nerve-wrecking in the sense that we see the full realization of Curtis’ psychosis. More specifically, we see the consequences of Curtis’ detachment from reality, on his long-suffering wife and daughter. They have been trapped by his descent into madness, unable to move away from their home because of a lack of finance and thus, left with nothing but hope that Curtis will come to his senses. This patriarchal dynamic, between a vulnerable mother, daughter and powerful yet imperfect father figure is highly terrifying because of its uncanny believability.

Unfortunately, Nichols' desire to make this film like a Stephen King novel in the sense that there is a constant interchange between reality and fantasy, means that the potential punch and resultant sting of the film is not quite realized.