'Midnight Special' keeps the audience wondering
If you have friends who have no reservations about leaning over and peppering you with questions like: “Wait, who is that?” “How did they get there?” “Why is …” then you may want to pass on inviting them to a screening of “Midnight Special.”
For it is a film that has no problem dropping the audience in the middle of the story and allowing the viewer to learn the answers as the rest of the tale unfolds. You essentially learn as the characters do, a common aspect in the films of talented director Jeff Nichols ("Take Shelter," "Mud), and it can drive viewers mad with the mystery, but for the patient patron, it can stoke the imagination into overdrive.
We hardly know their names, but a father (played by Michael Shannon) is eluding agents with his friend (played by Joel Edgerton), while protecting Shannon's character's young son (played by Jaeden Lieberher). Outfitted with swim goggles and other makeshift protective gear, the young lad is receptive to things outside the universe that we normal folk are not.
In pursuit are cops, feds, and cult members who see the boy as a deity, and all wish to have him in their possession. “Midnight Special” unfolds like a paranoid sci-fi flick, similar to a certain encounter of the Third Kind so many years ago. It's a suspenseful undertaking that keeps you wondering. As the father, Michael Shannon is a viewer’s entree into the story. He doesn’t really understand why his son has these gifts or what they mean, but his unconditional love for his son guides him forward. He has faith that the child’s instructions should be followed.
There are obvious religious interpretations available here, but that, like many other possible meanings to it all, is mostly in the eye of the beholder.
As a metaphor for the strange journey that is parenthood, "Midnight Special" is a kind of genius; it captures perfectly the vast unknown potential and the monumental responsibility willingly embraced by anyone who has raised a child.
Alas, for this viewer, the movie’s ending does not make sense, on a visual level, given what has gone before. Or rather, what has not gone before.
It works emotionally, however, so its’s doubtful fans of writer/director Jeff Nichols’ work will be put off.
The movie has its flaws, but it is nonetheless an intriguing sci-fi entry and an engaging story about family.
Besides Michael Shannon, Joel Edgerton and child star Jaeden Lieberher, the cast includes Adam Driver, Sam Shepard and Kirsten Dunst - none too shabby.
"Midnight Special" has deeply unsettling music (we mean that in the best way) from David Wingo. Cinematographer Adam Stone, like actor Michael Shannon, has been a presence in all five of Jeff Nichols’s films.
All good signs, in case you were looking.
