Underseen 'Midnight Special' deserving of the big screen
You should know about ‘Midnight Special’ by now.
The $18 million science-fiction drama starring Michael Shannon and Kirsten Dunst has been a moderate performer in limited release the last few weeks but hasn’t yet reached North Idaho theaters. Written and directed by Jeff Nichols, “Midnight Special” is a hybrid of intimate family drama crossed with the mystery and spectacle of “Close Encounters of the Third Kind.”
It’s a big screen-worthy movie trapped in the shadow of expensive, incoherent blockbusters (ahem, “Batman vs. Superman”). Luckily, you can currently see it in its full glory at the AMC River Park Square in Spokane.
The movie opens on Roy (Shannon) fleeing a Texas cult with his 8-year-old son, Alton (Jaeden Lieberher). Roy enlists his childhood friend, Lucas (Joel Edgerton), to help protect the boy, and the journey is almost immediately perilous.
Alton is no ordinary kid. He has dangerous, seemingly uncontrollable superhuman abilities that also appear to be sucking the life out of him, and sunlight only makes things worse. Pursued by cult members and the Feds, Alton, Roy and Lucas soon connect with Alton’s mother (Dunst) on a journey to an unspecified location for reasons not even the main characters understand.
“Midnight Special” withholds quite a bit of information for most of its running time, framing the movie from Lucas’ outsider perspective. Alton’s varied abilities range from the cute (predicting the dialogue in a Spanish radio ad) to the terrifying (an unwanted and explosive meteor shower).
Though it may seem like the opening act of a superhero epic, or sometimes even the build-up to an alien invasion film, “Midnight Special” is more a story about a broken family fighting to stay together. The father-son relationship between Roy and Alton is especially captivating, especially in how Shannon’s innate steeliness shades the depiction of the devoted and protective Roy.
Both Shannon and Edgerton are terrific low-key performers, and the fractured friendship between Roy and Lucas is essential to how the movie leaks information about Alton’s powers and the reasons for their pilgrimage. There’s an understated warmth to these men that grounds the film when the plot moves into spectacular territory.
“Midnight Special” is director Nichols working on his largest palette yet, but even when the movie reaches its effects-heavy third act, Nichols holds the story with the characters. His exploration of unsentimental-but-truthful family connection is central to his previous efforts (“Mud,” “Take Shelter”) and “Midnight Special” continues those thematic threads.
The science-fiction elements make direct references to movies like “Close Encounters” or “Starman,” and if there is fault in the homage, it’s in how the third act steers a little too far away from the previous tone of the movie. The performances, however, never waiver, with Dunst and Adam Driver (as an NSA agent on the hunt) adding thoughtful support down the stretch.
Given those sci-fi elements, it’s baffling to see “Midnight Special” unspool on a tiered, limited-release theatrical schedule that will ultimately prevent the movie from breaking even at the box office. The movie delivers as much spectacle as “Batman vs. Superman” with about 100 times the quality. I’d even say the movie is more kid-appropriate than the garish and hyper-violent comic book blockbuster.
Whatever the reasoning, be sure to see “Midnight Special” on the big screen, just the way it was intended. Best to hurry.
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Tyler Wilson can be reached at twilson@cdapress.com.