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American indie filmmaker Jeff Nichols set the action of his first, and so far, best film in rural Ohio. In the center of attention of this psychological thriller-drama is 35-year-old Curtis (excellent Michael Shannon), a construction worker, seemingly exemplary husband of Samantha (Jessica Chastain) and father of a deaf and mute girl. But their peaceful, completely average and ordinary life of one such family from the interior of America will slowly begin to fall apart when Curtis begins to experience dark, apocalyptic visions. Almost every night he will be awakened by such real nightmares, and he will become more and more convinced that something bad is going to happen.
He will begin building a shelter for his family in case of tornadoes that can hit the area, while at the same time he will become increasingly worried that he is sinking into paranoid schizophrenia. Curtis certainly has reasons to panic in this regard, because his mother also fell ill with schizophrenia in the thirties and was hospitalized in a mental institution, and as time passes, Curtis’s condition will get worse. Nichols made a dark, striking, unsettling and uneasy thriller in which tension and tension do not rest in special effects, but in something internal.
And while it increasingly seems to the viewer that Curtis is indeed sinking into madness, there remains that bit of doubt that questions whether he might be right. Is it possible that this man can really have a premonition that something bad, catastrophic and apocalyptic is coming and that he is actually the only one who is sane while everyone else who does not take him seriously is crazy. And who think he is not well. To the obsession of having to build a hideout for his family, Curtis will subordinate his whole life and everything around him will begin to fall apart, first his relationship with his best friend Dewart (Shea Wigham) who will accompany him and help him, until a certain moment.
Curtis will become more and more paranoid, and all those who know him and those who don’t know him in the town will slowly realize this. And he himself will try to find an answer to the question that is bothering him. He will visit his mother in an insane asylum to try to find out from her how her schizophrenia began to manifest itself, he will start reading literature about the disease, he will consult with experts. However, no matter how deeply he fears that he is mentally ill, he simply cannot help himself because the signs he sees and feels are too strong. Brilliantly, Nichols builds tension and tension from beginning to end and the viewer is constantly thinking about what is really happening. Shannon is really great, maybe it’s the best role of his career, but the whole film is great, which brought Nichols an award at the critics’ week in Cannes.