DARKLY BRILLIANT
‘Midnight Special’ a spellbinding, solid mystery
They call it movie magic for a reason. A well-made film can hypnotize us with improbabilities that logic could never accept, and fuel our imagination with fantasy.
That’s the effect of “Midnight Special,” an enthralling, suspenseful chase thriller set in sparse Texas towns and dusty back roads.
The gifted writer/director Jeff Nichols (“Mud”) is not just building a white-knuckled melodrama but a jigsaw puzzle. This is a solid mystery, intellectually tight and artistically coherent while being largely unpredictable.
It also happens to be a soulful, highconcept sci-fi film. Nichols’ vision owes as much to ’80s science fiction from Steven Spielberg and John Carpenter as it does to car chases, a connection revealed bit by gradual bit.
The opening takes off like a gritty police pursuit movie, casting the first half of the film in deep nighttime darkness. Even there, Adam Stone’s handsomely calibrated 35mm camera work looks atmospheric and authentic.
The film revs across the screen with the kinetic vibe that made “Vanishing Point” a drive-in hit of the 1970s. The tough-looking getaway men, Roy (Michael Shannon) and Lucas (Joel Edgerton), are quickly identified as kidnapping suspects; their young passenger, Alton (Jaeden Lieberher), has vanished.
What is the bond between the men and
the calm, assured boy? Roy appears to be his father, but their names differ. Are we seeing an abduction or a rescue? What destiny are they speeding toward, and will they need the guns they packed to reach it?
Nichols favors unfolding narratives step by step. He takes his time, telling us only what he’s willing to share. Thanks to his pitch-perfect actors, we buy into the mystery’s end game at full face value.
Shannon, a collaborator in all four of Nichols’ features, always radiates rawboned honesty, whether he plays a rough guy or a troubled, gentle man. Here we work to understand him and fathom his motives.
Why is he carrying Alton away from the Ranch, a religious cult campground, where the boy is regarded as a savior? The followers clearly adore him, expect him to carry them through an imminent apocalypse, and launch their own mission to bring Alton back.
We work to understand the phrases and numerical details that Alton utters when he is “speaking in tongues,” as it’s called by the group’s leader (Sam Shepard, antagonistic but not a cardboard evil standee). Why are those cryptic coded statements a key issue of national security? An army of government agents terms Alton “a weapon” and aims to pull him into interrogation chambers that look like Silicon Valley.
Alluding to Spielberg’s classics, there is satisfying human drama along the way. Edgerton and Kirsten Dunst, as Roy’s ex-wife, the boy’s mother, bring unexpected, emotionally driven heroism to the story. Not all the federal investigators are unsympathetic. Adam Driver brings playful curiosity to the role of a tenderfoot National Security Agency agent who regards Alton with amazement.
Nichols’ film requires us to interpret eerie episodes, some disturbingly dark, several terrifying, others stunning and hopeful as utopia. With theological omens and religious iconography, Nichols creates a trimly scripted story about the troubling challenges of fatherhood, the insecurities of being a child and the threatening forces pulling them apart.
Roy faces every danger along their escape route clearly determined to sacrifice himself in whatever way is needed to protect the child. When the boy tells him, “You don’t have to worry about me,” Roy’s answer is heart-wrenching. “I’ll always worry about you, Alton. I like worrying about you. That’s the deal.”
Nichols has created an audacious, arresting meditation on fate, society and the space-time continuum, but family above all. This is one of those precious films that pulls your mind on-screen. It’s magic.