by pinback » Tue Jul 05, 2016 10:03 am
Jeff Nichols has quietly cemented himself as a much-watch director. None of his movies are huge events, but they are all so good in their quietude that they sneak up on you, and into your brain, and fester in there like slimy little worms.
His latest, "Midnight Special" is a more grounded echo of Starman, with the same sense of making the ordinary seem more and more unsettling the longer you spend with it.
A story of a father (and his buddy) trying to protect his "special" child (no spoilers) and get him to a secret location turns it into a road trip movie where you're not sure where the road is going, or what, for that matter, is going there. The tension is palpable from the start.
I suspect the "reveal" moment (again, no spoilers) will be divisive, but I found it quite wondrous, and a perfect note on which to end the trip that had come before.
I think "Take Shelter" is still Nichols' best movie, but a four-star science fiction movie doesn't come along very often, so I'll go ahead and treasure this one.
Four (****) stars.
Jeff Nichols has quietly cemented himself as a much-watch director. None of his movies are huge events, but they are all so good in their quietude that they sneak up on you, and into your brain, and fester in there like slimy little worms.
His latest, "Midnight Special" is a more grounded echo of Starman, with the same sense of making the ordinary seem more and more unsettling the longer you spend with it.
A story of a father (and his buddy) trying to protect his "special" child (no spoilers) and get him to a secret location turns it into a road trip movie where you're not sure where the road is going, or what, for that matter, is going there. The tension is palpable from the start.
I suspect the "reveal" moment (again, no spoilers) will be divisive, but I found it quite wondrous, and a perfect note on which to end the trip that had come before.
I think "Take Shelter" is still Nichols' best movie, but a four-star science fiction movie doesn't come along very often, so I'll go ahead and treasure this one.
Four (****) stars.