Next time someone asks you why there’s no more magic at the movies, point them towards Midnight Special, the rare piece of faith-concerned filmmaking that’s inquisitive, insightful and exhilarating.
(Also, tell them to get off your case. Why is the magic in moviemaking suddenly your responsibility?)
The advancements of CGI technology have allowed for previously impossible concoctions on our screens.
A 12-year-old boy can now cavort with panthers, wolves and bears without any fear of becoming breakfast.
Batman can wrestle Superman as Metropolis crumbles around them (in sync with the audience’s diminishing patience). Actresses can now even
star opposite Gerard Butler without having to actually go near him.
What a time to be alive.
Still, when everything looks wondrous, nothing looks wondrous, and today, most jaws are dropped in anticipation of yawns than in awed delight.
Not so in
Midnight Special, which establishes writer-director Jeff Nichols as Steven Spielberg’s heir apparent.
(Is it too late to call a mulligan on
Jurassic World and get Nichols to make it properly this time?)
In it, a religious cult is raided by the FBI
not for their wackadoo religious beliefs, but because they might indeed be onto something.
As the church's leader Calvin Meyer (a fleeting Sam Shepard) admits, his scripture is based on the rantings of young Alton (Jaeden Lieberher), a boy with the power to speak in tongues, not to mention the much-cooler and even less explicable power to fire lightbeams of knowledge directly into others’ brains (a nifty special effect and economical storytelling tool for passing along information from character to character).
At
Midnight Special’s opening, the boy's been spirited away from the church compound by his dad Roy (Michael Shannon) and a state trooper named Lucas (Joel Edgerton), who joined in on Roy’s criminal plan after being enlightened by one of Alton’s exposition beams.
Their plotting takes place off-screen, before the picture commences. Nichols, in his wisdom, starts proceedings mid-escape. When we join them, the trio is already running from motel to motel, driving across rural Texas at midnight to avoid the Feds, the church and, eventually, the NSA (represented here by Adam Driver's Paul Sevier) as well as to keep the increasingly sickly and sun-resistant Alton from expiring.
They soon collect the boy's mother Sarah (Kirsten Dunst), who was excommunicated from the church, and continue on their single-minded mission: get Alton to Florida, as he’s requested, for...
something. Calvin’s congregation is convinced the boy has predicted Judgment Day. Roy and Sarah aren't quite as apocalyptic, yet they must contemplate another end: what happens if they get to the destination and discover, for certain, that Alton belongs to an otherworldly people? Are they willing to surrender their son for a greater cause?
Midnight Special is a road movie, and it delivers on that genre’s promises, from the car chases and backstabbings to the colourful assortment of antagonists on Alton's tail.
At 111 minutes, Nichols maintains the tension ably, propelled by his ingenious, ambitious opening gambit to open in what seems like the middle, trusting his audience to follow along as explanations are drip-fed over the first act.
However,
Midnight Special is more than a thrilling road movie. It’s about faith (though not any specific denomination’s). As he did in
Take Shelter and
Mud, here Nichols depicts faithful, religious people as complicated, inquiring minds, usually haunted by a past that ultimately led them to a place of faith, or drove them from it.
It’s also about mystery; the kind that fuels all faiths. Just like
Take Shelter – which also featured a powerhouse turn from Shannon -
Midnight Special, asks: can you 'believe' without evidence? Then, it goes a step further. If you had the evidence, would you know what to do with it?
Profound rhetorical questions are all well and good, yet they don’t quite account for
Midnight Special’s very real, very unique brand of magic. Much of that credit belongs to Shannon, Edgerton and Dunst for their melancholy, tender performances. Lieberher similarly sells the more fantastical elements by underplaying them beautifully.
Midnight Special’s imagination intrigues and involves the audience, thanks to bountiful action, emotion and Nichols’ wide-eyed, vista-loving,
Close Encounters-inspired direction (with an assist from cinematographer Adam Stone). David Wingo’s hypnotic piano score helps sets the tone with the best superhero theme of this century.
Smart, singular storytelling combines in
Midnight Special for a flick that satisfies not only the brain but our cinematic pleasure centers too.
Jeff Nichols,
your magic is real and I believe in you.
4/5
In cinemas April 21. Rated M for science fiction themes and violence.
Awesome