Take Shelter. This one isn’t great as a thriller, because you go in thinking the guy’s gonna be a lunatic and you don’t buy for a second that it’s not just all in his head. BUT, and this is huge, it’s really, really good just as a movie about mental illness. I don’t think I’ve seen many movies this convincingly sympathetic. Often when I see extreme psychological issues on screen (recently: Antichrist, Repulsion, Black Swan) it feels like an excuse for spectacle, it’s motive, it’s entertainment. Michael Shannon’s paranoia just breaks him, and you see the overwhelming shame and terror he feels about his own condition and how it threatens his family. In that, this is very successful. It’s like Martha Marcy May Marlene in that way. Jessica Chastain is my favorite actress that I didn’t know existed until last month. I also liked director Jeff Nichols’ movie Shotgun Stories.
Mark Larson 