Jeff Nichols is a director who doesn’t have to raise his
voice in order to make a dramatic point.
One look at his excellent 2011 thriller Take Shelter, and you see a
filmmaker out of step with the times.
This tale about one man wrestling with visions about the end of the
world would have been rendered as a thundering, special effects laden
extravaganza by any of a number of Hollywood directors with an emphasis on
scenes of mass destruction rather than introspective reflection. Nichols opts for the later approach with his
films, giving audiences much to consider long after the end credits roll.
His latest effort, Midnight Special, takes the same
approach but unlike Shelter as well as the 2012 Matthew McConaughey feature Mud, it lacks the sense of conviction that made those films successful. Borrowing liberally from John Carpenter’s Starman, the movie follows the efforts of a desperate man named Roy (Michael
Shannon) who’s on the run with his eight year-old son Alton (Jaeden
Lieberher). Seems the boy has a
particular skill set that enables him to disrupt electronic frequencies, decode
encrypted information and bring satellites crashing to Earth. It’s suggested
that this is just the tip of the iceberg where these powers are concerned,
something that of course gets the attention of the United States’ military,
particularly researcher Paul Sevier (Adam Driver).
With the help of his old childhood friend Lucas (Joel
Edgerton), Roy is attempting to get Alton cross country from Texas where he was
kidnapped from a commune run by Calvin Meyer (Sam Shepard), a self-proclaimed
religious leader who was using Alton’s powers for his own game, claiming that
all the boy said was the word of God.
Obviously, he sends out some devoted followers to bring Alton back.
Much of the story takes place at night as the three
travelers haunt the backroads and lends itself to quiet moments in which the
trust between father and son grows, because of both word and action. Little conversations between Roy and Alton,
some of them about nothing in particular, show the growing bond between them,
while the onlooker Lucas comes to understand the chances he’s taking, in order
to protect this innocent boy, are worthwhile.
A story of this sort dictates that an action set piece or
two be thrown into the mix and Nichols doesn’t disappoint where staging them
are concerned or making sure they help move the story along and reveal a bit
more about each of the characters. The
highlight is a sequence in which small pieces of space debris begin to rain
down upon a gas station where our trio has stopped to rest. Nichols’ handling of this scene underscores
the true danger of the moment while the explanation of what causes this
disaster is one of the film’s best moments.
While the relationships, including the one between Alton and
his mother Sarah (Kirsten Dunst), are convincing and Nichols effectively
emphasizes the emotional aspects of the story, his sense of pacing nearly sends
the film into the ditch. Many scenes run
too long and the conclusion is needlessly prolonged, so much so that viewers may
begin to overanalyze things that are better left alone. This approach is indicative of an insecure
filmmaker, which Nichols is not, making it even more glaring. That being said, Special has enough heart
that we can overlook its faults.
This article appears in Apr 14-20, 2016.
