'Take Shelter' Trailer: Michael Shannon Prepares For The End Of His World

I'm going to avoid really embracing any obvious gags like 'Take Shelter really took Sundance by storm,' but the fact remains that Jeff Nichols' film about a man's deteriorating mental state really made an impression on viewers both at Sundance and at Cannes. The film stars Michael Shannon as a man who dreams of an apocalyptic oncoming storm, and features Jessica Chastain (The Tree of Life) and Shea Whigham. Sony Pictures Classics picked up the movie at Sundance, and now there is a great trailer.

Germain liked the film at Sundance, calling it the definition of a slow burn, saying,

Though Take Shelter moves like molasses punctuated with moments of frightening intensity, it never loses its dramatic tension. Nichols' script and direction bring the audience into Curtis's mindset. Much as he feels frightened, the pacing and visuals build a continual anticipation. Is Curtis crazy? Is he a prophet? From the minute the film begins, the audience is left with an uneasy feeling...

I'm perfectly OK with the molasses pace — I very much like that in some films, to be honest — and I'm looking forward to seeing Jessica Chastain in another film after her luminous, moving work in The Tree of Life. And I'll watch Michael Shannon in anything, ever.

Yahoo has the HD trailer. The synopsis posted to Yahoo is a bit long, so I've excerpted it below:

Curtis LaForche lives in a small Ohio town with his wife Samantha and six-year-old daughter Hannah, who is deaf. Curtis makes a modest living as a crew chief for a sand-mining company. Samantha is a stay-at-home mother and part-time seamstress who supplements their income by selling handmade wares at the flea market each weekend. Money is tight, and navigating Hannah's healthcare and special needs education is a constant struggle. Despite that, Curtis and Samantha are very much in love and their family is a happy one. Then Curtis begins having terrifying dreams about an encroaching, apocalyptic storm. He chooses to keep the disturbance to himself, channeling his anxiety into the obsessive building of a storm shelter in their backyard....

Here's a scene from the film, too: