Midnight Special

Jeff Nichols’s film Midnight Special has you wondering from the beginning what is happening and where is it leading. It opens with a news report about a man who is wanted for kidnapping 8-year-old Alton Meyer (Jaeden Lieberher). The man is Roy (Michael Shannon), and it turns out Alton is his son.

Nichols treats each of his characters with respect for their complex humanity. He doesn’t view the members of the cult as dolts or the government workers as villains.

Roy is accompanied by Lucas (Joel Edgerton), and the two of them flee the motel where they have the boy and head across Texas at night.

Then the film switches to an older man (Sam Shepard), who tells two subordinates to get the boy back in four days.

All this has us wondering, who are these people? Why do they want this boy? What happens in four days?

Such uncertainty, and the refusal to explain things quickly, is a trademark of Nichols, one of our finest young directors. He also made Take Shelter and Mud.

Eventually we learn that Shepard is leader of a cult and that Alton has special powers that the group has formed around. Roy has taken him away and heads for the house of the boy’s mother (Kirsten Dunst).

Meanwhile, the FBI, military, and NSA are also after the boy. Paul Sevier (Adam Driver) of the NSA interviews members of the cult to try to learn about Alton’s powers, about the blaze of light that comes from his eyes.

Nichols treats each of his characters with respect for their complex humanity. He doesn’t view the members of the cult as dolts or the government workers as villains.

While the film is labeled a sci-fi thriller, it is also an intimate portrayal of family love in tension with religious belief. Shannon, who appears in all four of Nichols’s films, communicates so much through his facial expressions. His performance is masterful. All the acting here is terrific. And much communication happens through nods or gestures rather than dialogue.

The tension builds as we learn more about who Alton is and as Roy does his best to save him from his pursuers. But when we reach the climax, which smacks of Spielbergian grandiosity, it feels disappointing. It doesn’t fit the tenor of the rest of the film. It explains too much and simplifies what has gone on.

Midnight Special is a powerful film, weakened, however, by its ending. It portrays people haunted by the desire to believe.

Rated PG-13 for some violence.

All reviews express the opinions of the reviewer, not necessarily the views of Third Way.