TAKE SHELTER

TAKE SHELTER

The secret storm of Michael Shannon

Take Shelter, the controversial new drama about a man's biblical-proportion paranoia, is, for me, the first film that defines the 21st century. Sure, we have seen more than 1,000 movies come and go since the turn of the millennium. But here we have a film for our times. In its simplest of settings (rural Ohio), and its gentlest of characters (loving man, woman and child), we find a probing examination of our greatest fear - fear itself.

Controversy has swirled around Take Shelter, not unlike the massive storm clouds that often frame the movie. A raging debate ensued when I first saw the film at the Toronto …