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Take Shelter | 2011 | R | - 2.6.5

A young husband and father (Michael Shannon) is plagued by a series of apocalyptic visions, that force him to question his own sanity; he must then decide between sheltering his family from the coming storm or come to terms with the idea that he's psychotic and it's all in his head. Also with Jessica Chastain, Shea Whigham and Katy Mixon. Directed by Jeff Nichols. [2:00]

SEX/NUDITY 2 - A man and woman kiss after the woman wraps her arms around the man. On three occasions we see a man and a woman hug; the woman places her arms around the man and rests her head on his shoulders.
 A man and a woman are seen lying in bed together (no nudity is visible). A man grabs a woman's hand and places it on his chest, and the woman rests her head on his shoulder. A woman comforts a man, placing his head on her shoulder.
 We see a man standing in the shower: his bare shoulders and a portion of his back are visible. We see a young girl with a towel wrapped around her (no nudity visible). A young girl is seen wearing a bathing suit.


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VIOLENCE/GORE 6 - A man drives rapidly down a street in heavy rain with a young girl in a car seat next to him, he swerves to avoid hitting a man walking in the road, drives off the road, hits his head on the steering wheel, awakens moments later (we see a bloody cut on his forehead with blood dripping down his face), we hear the girl in the car seat crying, a knock is heard on the roof of the truck and a zombie-like woman breaks the windshield and passenger window and starts pulling the young girl through the open window as the man screams; a zombie-like man tries to pull the driver out of the window too (we see him screaming) and he wakes up, realizing it had been a dream and gasps for air. A man stands in the rain, he is startled when lightning strikes the ground, we see him reach for a young girl standing at his side as the clouds turn into tornado swirls, a barking dog breaks out of its leash and lunges at the man, biting and ripping at his arm, the man screams and wakes up, realizing it had been a dream (we later see the man rub his arm as though it is in pain).
 We hear a tornado siren and the crash of thunder as a woman wakes a man and we see the man, the woman and a young girl run into a storm shelter; the man places an oxygen mask on the young girl and a gas mask on himself, as does the woman, and later we see the family emerge from the storm shelter, unharmed.
 A man shakes violently, a woman shouts as she lies next to him in bed, the man seizes and we see a small spray of blood on the bed and pillow; the woman shouts on the phone that the man is bleeding, and the man stops shaking moments later and tells the woman to not send help. A man is startled when he sees his daughter looking out the window at a man staring in the window, the father grabs his young daughter and crouches in a corner, we see the doorknob shaking (it is implied to be the man lurking outside trying to break into the house), and all of the furniture in the room lifts and hangs in mid-air; we see the man's mouth open to scream but there is no sound and the furniture crashes to the ground and the man awakens, realizing it was a dream. A man imagines his wife soaking wet and dripping water and taking a long glance at a knife on a counter (it is implied that she is about to attack the man).
 A man shoves another man, he stumbles backwards and the man punches him in the face, knocking him to the ground; the man on the ground then kicks the other man in the shin and the man shouts in pain. A man angrily kicks the ground.
 A man has a panicked look on his face as he looks at the ocean and waterspouts appear in the ocean while a woman looks on in shock. A man holds his young daughter in his arms; a flock of bird dive around them and the man looks surprised as the birds zoom past them. Birds drop from the sky and we see their bodies twitch, as they lie dying on the ground.
 A man shouts at his young, deaf daughter and then rushes into the street and grabs her. A woman shouts at a man and walks away angrily. A woman shouts angrily at a man and cries. A man shouts at his wife. A man shouts at his wife and he then apologizes. A man tells a doctor that he had a dream in which a dog attacked him and that the pain in his arm had lasted for almost an entire day. A man tells a woman that he had been experiencing dreams where people would attack him or their daughter, including that the man had almost chewed off his arm. A man tells a woman that he had a dream where another man's face and eyes were "different" and that the man had attacked him with a pickaxe after they wrestled momentarily. A man explains to a woman that another man had used a pickaxe to chop up the man's leg until he awoke from a dream. An older woman tells her adult son that when she had initially been diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia, and that she heard people's voices talking to her. A man tells a woman that when he was ten years old his mother had experienced a psychotic break and left him in a car; she was found a week later, eating trash from a garbage can hundreds of miles away. A man tells another man that he could have accidentally run over someone with borrowed equipment, saying that it would have bankrupted him. A man tells his doctor that he had urinated in his bed.
 A man and a woman watch a news program; we hear the anchor describe how a man had been exposed to chlorine gas for ten hours, unable to escape from his house after a train wreck. A news anchor describes how a man and a woman had passed away from exposure to chlorine gas. A woman uses sign language to tell a young girl to not slam a board onto the ground and the woman later tells a man that the young girl had found a board with nails in it on a junk table.
 A man is startled by a crack of thunder. A man flinches as an elderly woman walks past him. A woman reaches for a man's hand; the man flinches and pulls away. A man shouts angrily at a crowd of people, and we see him flip over a table and continue to shout at the crowd; the man warns the crowd that a storm is coming and that they will not be prepared.
 A man rips a gas mask off his face and he gasps for air but is unharmed. Two EMTs offer to take a look at the cuts inside a man's mouth.
 A man vomits: we see vomit coming from his mouth and hear the sound of retching, and the man continues to struggle to breathe as he drives, gasping for breath until he has to pull over. A man lifts his blankets and we see a wet spot around his crotch, including wet boxers, implying the man had urinated on the bed. A man spits while he chews sunflower seeds.

LANGUAGE 5 - About 6 F-words and its derivatives, 1 sexual reference, 7 scatological terms, 1 anatomical term, 9 mild obscenities, name-calling (out of your mind, thief), 2 religious profanities, 5 religious exclamations.

SUBSTANCE USE - A man is given a prescription sedative, we see a man taking two prescription sedative pills and later see him take five pills at once, and a man asks a woman what he needs to "get on" in order to cure delusions and hallucinations and that he believes he is having a psychotic break. We see two men sitting in a pickup truck and it is implied they had been drinking, a doctor advises a man to not drink alcoholic beverages or use tobacco before sleeping, and a man jokes that happy hour starts at 5:00 PM.

DISCUSSION TOPICS - Psychotic breaks, paranoid schizophrenia, the apocalypse, visions, fear, disappointment, losing a person's job.

MESSAGE - Psychotic breaks can be very serious.

CAVEATS

Be aware that while we do our best to avoid spoilers it is impossible to disguise all details and some may reveal crucial plot elements.

We've gone through several editorial changes since we started covering films in 1992 and older reviews are not as complete & accurate as recent ones; we plan to revisit and correct older reviews as resources and time permits.

Our ratings and reviews are based on the theatrically-released versions of films; on video there are often Unrated, Special, Director's Cut or Extended versions, (usually accurately labelled but sometimes mislabeled) released that contain additional content, which we did not review.


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