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Michael Shannon is the loyal dad in Midnight Special |
Roy Tomlin (Michael Shannon) is on the run from the law with
his son Alton (Jaeden Lieberher), helped only by his friend Lucas (Joel
Edgerton). Alton has mysterious powers – glowing eyes, elements of telekinesis
and the ability to intercept electrical signals – that have made him a target
for everyone from the government to a cult that has kept him under lock and key
for years, believing he holds the key to surviving the inevitable apocalypse.
Alton has an aversion to sunlight which means our heroes can only travel at
night, heading towards a secret location, trying to stay one step ahead of the
dangerous figures following them.
Nichols film is almost too elliptical for its own good. But
then I think this is partly Nicholls point. He’s looking to subvert a few
expectations here. To create a sci-fi, other-world chase movie that’s wrapped
itself up in enigmas. Sadly, I think to have enigmas like this become truly
engaging, you need to form a connection with the film itself – and Midnight
Special fails too much here.
It keeps its cards extremely close to its chest – it only
begins to dive into any sort of explanation about what’s going on over halfway
into the film, and even then this is kept vague and undefined. There is
virtually no exploration given of most of the characters of their backstory,
bar a few key points. It’s a chase movie which frequently slows down to a
crawl. It’s a science fiction film that’s largely confined to the ‘real’ world.
It’s a father-and-son on the run film, which separates these two characters for
a large chunk of its runtime. All this makes it very difficult to form an
emotional attachment with, in the way you do with, say, Close Encounters
or The Terminator (both of which have traces in the film’s DNA).
Not that I think Nicholls will mind, as this is an attempt
to do something different, more of an existential musing on humanity. Its
unfortunate that this was exploration of personal regrets and tragedies against
a backdrop of earth-shattering sci-fi revelations was done more absorbingly in Arrival
among others. Compared to that, Nicholls film seems almost a little too pleased
with its deep (and in the end slightly empty) mysteries and its opaque
characters, many of them defined more by actions and plot functions rather than
personality traits.
There’s strong work from Shannon as a father desperate to do
the right thing and Lieberher as young boy who becomes calmer and more in
control as the film progresses. But we never quite learn enough – or understand
enough – about either of them to really invest in their fates.
And without that investment, its hard to worry in the same
way about what might happen to them – or to really care about the revelations
they are seeking to discover by the films conclusion. The film could
counterbalance this if the ideas behind it were fascinating enough. But I am
not sure they are. It touches upon questions of faith, parental love, destiny
and human nature – but it studies them like they were under a microscope. Ideas
are there to be excavated from it, but that doesn’t always make for great
story-telling. Take the cult: there are fascinating ideas about the honesty
(and pervasions) of faith, contrasting this perhaps with the overwhelming faith
the father has in his son’s fate. The film introduces this – and then doesn’t
really give it any depth.
It’s a problem all across the film. It’s partly a meditation
on human progress and enlightenment – but the film never makes a compelling
case or intellectual argument about it. Again there’s some great opportunities
here, not least with Adam Driver’s fine performance as a sceptic turning
believer – but it even that plotline eventually gets reduced to simply allowing
someone to move from A to B for plot purposes. The film – for all the skill it’s
made with and the obvious talent of Nicholls – is cold and distant.
And a cold and distant film is eventually going to get that
reaction from a lot of its audience. Those who can see its merits, but never
engage with it – or care about it – enough to really seek it out.
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