Dylan This movie fails. Utterly and completely. Even those reviews that praise the movie concede it is "slow" and "challenging." They are right. This movie is so slow, but you keep watching it because you keep waiting for an answer to the key question, "Is the main character crazy or prophetic?" In the end, you will feel cheated.120 minutes of the movie lead you down the path of believing the main character is crazy. These are the key events of the first two hours of this movie: the main character's life unravels piece-by-piece until he is broke, he has no job, his child's needed surgery cannot occur, his best friend hates him, and his wife is contemplating leaving him. Meanwhile, his family and friends try in vain to help. If this kind of human misery and suffering is something you enjoy watching, have at it, but also know it's been done a lot better a lot of times.The ultimate betrayal in this movie is that the only thing that keeps you watching is finding the answer to the question of whether the main character's dreams are insane delusions or a premonition. If he was crazy, the movie could have ended with the main character repairing his life and getting the help he needs, but then within the last 30 seconds of the film, the script reveals he was actually right all along, but then just ends. Wha-wha-what? If the story takes the premonition route, it has some obligation to explain what exactly this premonition is of? Why he is the only one seeing it? Does he and his family survive? Why premonitions of the storm include such silly things as furniture floating? A decent script would have paid the viewers some amount of respect and attempted to tell the viewers SOMETHING. No. The moment we learn that he actually did predict a storm, the screen goes black. No questions are answered. No story is told. And if I see one more review telling me how beautiful this movie has been shot, I may just have to pour lemon juice into my eyes. Yes, the movie looked good, but how does that make up for a missing plot? Or glacial pacing? It doesn't.I did not plan on writing this review. I wanted to go to bed after this 121-minute waste of time ended, but the final scene (i.e., revealing snippet of long-awaited answer and then goes black) made me so viscerally angry that I had to say something.

chet19 Take Shelter is a story of a schizophrenic man who thinks a big tornado is coming. He's obsessed with building an unnecessary storm shelter. He blows his family's money, loses his job, estranges his wife, steals his boss's construction equipment, and becomes the laughing stock of the town...all because of his mental disease. You wait two hours for the payoff: Surely you know that a real storm will occur, and he was right all along and the others were all wrong. Uh, no. As you wait and wait for the big payoff, you slowly realize that it ain't gonna happen. The big storm he feared turns out to be a mild windy rain shower. All the people who doubted him and laughed at him were right. He was wrong. What a waste of two hours. No payoff. No changes (there's no indication that he changed his mind at the end or that he cured his schizophrenia...instead, we see him at the end just as he was at the beginning. An epic waste of time.

Mr-Fusion "Take Shelter" was described to me as a character-driven indie movie with a twist ending, which immediately made me think of something like "Another Earth". And most of the time (for me, at least) a controversial ending is just something that torpedoes the rest of the movie; a "gotcha" that undermines a movie's defining qualities and retains notoriety based simply on that cheat. "Take Shelter" is the undeniable exception.Everything here rests on the shoulders of Michael Shannon. He embodies some pretty universal fears (the economy, job security, protecting one's family) while staring down the barrel of a family history of mental illness. Is there really a storm coming or is it just in his head? And that sounds like a low-grade plot gimmick, but it's the treatment thereof that's anything but. And that's key, because this is driven by character and his tremendous talent. We're never really sure what the answer is, but his suffering and descent are slow and painful.And that's another thing: given the leisurely pacing, you'd think this would be a complete snore. But one thing this movie does very well (among others) is ratchet the dread. There's only one violent altercation in this story, but you always fear a quiet moment between Shannon's family - a meal at the table, a conversation in the bedroom - as they struggle to deal with this endurance test. I have nothing but good things to say about this film; gripping, unusually sensitive and speaks to the love and support of family.9/10 And as for the ending; it's deliberately ambiguous, but seems to work no matter what you take from this. That's impressive.

Mettsemmel All the details aside, the movie as a whole is just mesmerizing.I can understand why some people find it (really) boring. After all it's no roller-coaster ride. No, it's a totally different kind of thrill. It's that kind that captivates you so slowly that you don't realize it. In my opinion this is the best kind of suspense.This mood has been achieved by outstanding acting performances, by an amazing cinematography, by a perfect fitting score, by an excellent direction and editing, by a fascinating story and basically by everything else I forgot to mention.This movie is for everyone who enjoys movies with a slow, natural pace.E.g. if you love the pace of Tarkovski, of "2001", "Fitzcarraldo" and "Paris,Texas", this movie is for you. If you prefer the Extended Editions of "Lord of the Rings" to the standard versions and the Redux version of "Apocalypse Now" to the original one - this movie is for you. If you rather lie on a hill and watch people and animals, when you're visiting a foreign country, instead of partying in the biggest club in town - this movie is for you.This is the first movie by Jeff Nichols that I've watched and I'm really looking forward to watching everything else made by him.Thank you, Jeff.