Midnight Special

Midnight Special is the kind of movie that slowly unravels the information of its plot to us, almost teasing us and inviting us to follow along with its clues.  The ending that the movie reaches may provide more questions than answers, and the movie itself is also imperfect.  Yet, it is also enthralling throughout, and worth watching.  If writer-director Jeff Nichols doesn't quite reach greatness with his strange and intoxicating Sci-Fi story, he at least knows how to take us along for quite the ride.

As in his previous films, Take Shelter and Mud, the story is set in the South, and it's plainly obvious that Nichols understands these environments.  Though the story elements are out there and concern supernatural abilities, the setting feels lived in and natural.  We can tell that he understands this territory, and he is comfortable with the quiet suburbs and lonely roads of places like Florida, Louisiana and Texas.  When the heroes are driving down a long stretch of road in the middle of the night in one scene, it doesn't feel splashy or intricate.  But it does feel real, and it feels like Nichols knows these parts.  That helps in particular here, as the story throws us in immediately head first from almost the first scene, and never looks back.  We need a guide to help us get through it, and who knows these parts.

Almost as soon as the opening titles have faded, we are thrust right into the story.  There is an Amber Alert on TV for a missing child named Alton Meyer (Jaeden Lieberher).  We find Alton in a run down motel room, hiding under the sheets of a bed.  The windows have been covered with cardboard, and there is black tape over the eye hole on the door of the room.  Also in the room with Alton are two men, Roy (Nichols regular Michael Shannon) and Lucas (Joel Edgerton).  With the alert now televised, they can't stay there anymore, and need to escape into the night.  As the men grab the boy to leave, we see that little Alton is wearing swimming goggles and noise-canceling headphones.  All of this information is given to us within the first few minutes of the film, and I for one was immediately intrigued, and wanted to know what was going on.

As Roy and Lucas drive down the road, they turn off the lights of their car so they can't be seen, choosing instead to drive with night vision goggles.  When they eventually come across a State Trooper, the men do not hesitate to shoot him in order to stay on the run.  We soon learn that there is something special about Alton, and that a lot of people are looking for him for different reasons.  The boy has the ability to pick up radio signals with his brain, and can shoot blinding blasts of light from his eyes.  These are powers that even he himself does not understand, but there are people who want to exploit his abilities, chief amongst them a religious cult whose leader (Sam Shepard) believes that the boy is a living miracle, and wants to exploit him.  We soon learn that the man who has stolen him, Roy, is in fact the boy's father, and that he will do everything in his power in order to keep him out of the hands of everyone else who wants to either use him or experiment on him.

They soon pick up Alton's mother, Sarah (Kirsten Dunst), who joins Roy and Lucas on their journey.  They are all trying to get Alton to a specific place where a certain event is set to happen.  What is the event?  What is the meaning behind little Alton and his powers?  Midnight Special is intentionally not quick with its answers.  It lays the pieces of its plot down, enticing us to follow wherever it may go.  To say anymore of the plot would rob it of the power it holds, so I will stop here.  Despite the intentionally slow and somewhat meandering nature of the plot, Nichols does know how to grab our attention.  He'll throw in a certain event or jolt to immediately grab our attention, or jump start our interest just when it might be starting to wane.  Besides, it's not as if the story isn't going anywhere.  Nichols is just biding his time.  I can see how this approach may irritate some people, but I was intrigued.

Nichols also manages to get some strong, low key performances from his cast.  Shannon, who is usually more intense than he is here, gives a quiet but strong edge to his portrayal of Roy, a father on the run who is willing to go to any lengths to understand what is happening to his son.  This refers to both his unearthly powers, as well as why is the boy suddenly growing weak and sick?  Edgerton and Dunst bring the same qualities to their performances, with Dunst adding a bit of sympathy to go with her quiet, strong edge.  Finally, there is young Lieberher as Alton, who often comes across as an unassuming little child who is not fully aware of what he is, or what is going on around him.  But, as he begins to understand by the end, there is a strength that he brings to the character.  This is not an easy role for a child actor to pull off, as it must be quiet and restrained, while also holding tremendous power.  Lieberher pulls it off about as effortlessly as any little actor could.

Even if not everything about Midnight Special works, we are intrigued completely by the time it is over, and we can forgive it when it occasionally stumbles.  Nichols has gone out on a limb here, giving us a strange yet beautiful story of a father and son, and the lengths that parents will go for the safety of their children.  Even if some of the concepts are out there, it does have a universal theme that anyone can relate to.

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