Movie Of The Day - Take Shelter
Movies that try to balance a narrator between two alternate, hypothetical realities are always a tough sell. Undoubtedly they’re a major challenge for any screenwriter. People laugh when I insist - honestly- that Total Recall has one of the better scripts ever in mainstream Hollywood. One key reason for this belief comes from that scripts uncanny ability to make the viewers doubt what they see.
So yes - it’s a challenge. After all, you’ve got multiple elements in play. You’ve got to make the unreliable narrators doubt an audience’s doubt. If the story leans too much toward the supernatural, or vice versa, the game’s over. The movie becomes boring and predictable. You’ve also got to make the characters struggle the audience’s struggle. So both realities have to be independently compelling. The scenario where a man is losing his mind has to be just as interesting as the scenario where he’s totally, utterly right. That perfect balance creates a pleasurable hell for the audience because they spend the entire runtime second-guessing themselves. Finally, you have to make that unreliable narrator a likeable character.
Here is a movie that tries that epic balancing act - and succeeds for the most part. It’s not perfect, but it’s always entertaining. These are the kinds of stories that are arguably most difficult to tell. And the trying alone makes it worth it.
