MIDNIGHT SPECIAL – Review

Review by Stephen Tronicek

The entire world of MIDNIGHT SPECIAL seems to be built on an allegory for the fears of writer/director Jeff Nichols. The entire world, and film, seems to be built on the fear of raising a child in the modern world. In a world of that’s more technologically advanced than you could ever dream. A world where the government is prevalent but not dangerous, but a world where religion ultimately can be.

The opening of MIDNIGHT SPECIAL has little concern with these things, but that’s only because of its set up. Two men on the run with a boy. Roy, Lucas, and Alton. The introduction of these characters is brief, but extremely memorable. Nichols has always been an excellent writer when it comes to characters coming fully formed into films, and his regular Michael Shannon is a spectacular enough character actor to sell Nichols’s fully realized characters. Shannon plays Roy, a father protecting his son. The car’s engine bellows as the music does the same.

Nichols has always known how to create  memorable scenes like that. The increasing noise of the car ramping up tension as the speed only prompts an accident. An explosion of violence. MIDNIGHT SPECIAL starts poetic, and beautiful. It’s a film that doesn’t bother with exposition and lets memorable and emotional moments show us the world that has shaped around  the characters. Shannon and Joel Edgerton both shine through this part of the film. The intensity that can be seen on their faces as the audiences is brought through the twists and turns is palpable. The sheer ferocity of the performances here is astounding.

But the movie changes, and becomes ever the more interesting. The world mechanics start to kick in, and the allegory reveals itself.

Those two halves of MIDNIGHT SPECIAL are differentiated very much from each other, but that’s not a bad thing. The intensity of the first act could not have gone on forever without everything eventually tiring (though with the direction that Nichols employed it might have). The story needs to go somewhere. To some,where it goes may seem disappointing and shallow, but that mistake can be made for much of the movie. Some could in fact say that the characters of MIDNIGHT SPECIAL are shallow when in fact they’re complete characters from moment one. They’re just not exposition dumps. Reading into the performances is required to understand them, and the rich complexities that they represent.

There are so many complexities that MIDNIGHT SPECIAL has to offer if looked at in the right way. It’s a film that transcends the normal standards of filmmaking, and becomes, in a sense, real art to be delved into and interpreted. Sure, it’s art with guys shooting off shotguns, and that’s just awesome, but through sheer force of will Nichols has created a wondrous, hard-bitten, whimsical blast of a film. Go see MIDNIGHT SPECIAL, and interpret for yourself.

5 of 5 Stars