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Reel M I NI S T R Y MIDNIGHT SPECIAL Introduction to the film Midnight Special is technically a sci-fi thriller, though saying that risks leading audiences astray. It’s also technically a movie about escaping a cult. And it’s also technically a movie about parents and children, and the fight to protect your family -- something that Nichols has often explored in his other films, like Shotgun Stories and Loving and Take Shelter. Yet it’s best seen without expectations that might come from any genre. In this movie, appearances and expectations are always deceptive. At first, it seems like Roy (played by Michael Shannon, who’s in all of Nichols’s films) might be bad news. The cult that he and his son Alton (Jaeden Lieberher) have been part of, led by Pastor Calvin Meyer (Sam Shepard), seems like it could be just another movie cult, wildly misguided and possibly abusive. Roy’s estranged wife Sarah (Kirsten Dunst) could be a troubled absentee mother, and his friend Lucas (Joel Edgerton) could be bad news. And scientist Paul Sevier (Adam Driver) -- well, we’ve seen this kind of skeptic before. I’m not sure if Midnight Special is named for the Creedence Clearwater Revival song, but it’s almost certainly a reference to the traditional folk song that the band covered, which reportedly originated with prisoners in the American South. (The Creedence version is likely based on a recorded version from the 1930s, recorded by Huddie “Lead Belly” Ledbetter, who had quite the life.) In the chorus of the song, the singers croon, “Let the midnight special shine her light on me / Let the midnight special shine her ever-loving light on me.” The “midnight special” is the name of a train, and reportedly, prisoners believed that if the train caught you in its light, you’d be set free soon. I’m glad the movie doesn’t perfectly map that legend or the song’s story onto its own plot. There’s more beauty in the mystery. Astonishingly, Midnight Special takes every one of our expectations and tosses them out the window. Usually, when movies or TV tackle questions of cults built around someone or something with special powers, we assume the cult is wrong. But this film is brave enough to pursue a startling question: What if the answer was more complex? What if the wild-sounding myth turned out to be true? And it builds that story into one about men who are worried and fearful and need one another to survive, men who in another movie might be relegated to the background. They’re stewarding a power they don’t, and can’t, fully understand. And this movie is no puzzle box, with a mystery that resolves into an easy solution. It’s purposely open-ended, with space for our interpretations and our wonder. Just like faith. Just like life. Where to watch: Streaming on Netflix Rent on YouTube, Apple TV, Amazon Video, etc. QUESTIONS What did you expect from the first scene of the movie? How were your expectations thwarted or fulfilled? Science fiction often conjures a world that is like ours, but a little different, in order to tell us something about our own world. It wants to make us think about our own world in a new and dislocated way. How did Midnight Special do this? What did it make you think about in your own world and life? Often, movies about cults make us think that the cult is definitely going to be wrong in their beliefs (in addition to being abusive, closed off from the world, or many other things). This movie casts the group in a different light. What did you think of Pastor Calvin and the acolytes? How do you think you would have reacted if you’d come to know what they know? The character of Paul Sevier, a government scientist, is also a familiar figure in science fiction movies. But he too is a surprise. What does his character suggest about the relationship between rational thought and scientific discovery, and wonder? One of the most controversial parts of this movie when it came out was what happens in the final reveal, when the curtain is finally pulled back. What did you think of that rendering? What did it evoke for you? In which character do you see yourself? FOR FURTHER READING Interviews with Jeff Nichols, Michael Shannon, Joel Edgerton, and Kirsten Dunst from the film’s premiere at the 2016 Berlin Film Festival Brian Tallerico’s review at RogerEbert.com A.O. Scott’s review at the New York Times Profile of Jeff Nichols in Wired.
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