Curtis LaForche is having bad dreams.

"Take Shelter"

Really bad dreams – the kind where approaching storms of apocalypse threaten to destroy everything in their wake. Where birds wheel through the sky in ominous portent, and shadowy strangers come in the night to steal his child.

As portrayed by the powerful actor Michael Shannon in director Jeff Nichols’ superior thriller, Curtis is an anguished man caught in a terrifying downward spiral. His visions are so real to him that he digs an underground storm shelter in the yard, hoping to protect his increasingly concerned wife (Jessica Chastain) and their deaf little girl (Tova Stewart) from the coming cataclysm.

But Curtis is also facing another terrifying possibility: His mother (Kathy Baker) was swept away by schizophrenia at around the same age Curtis is now. Disturbing daytime incidents at work – he’s a crew chief for a construction outfit – have Curtis doubting his own faculties. Are the dreams just rumblings of a different kind of approaching storm? Is the real danger to the family actually Curtis himself?

Director Nichols displays some masterful storytelling techniques in “Take Shelter,” which swims in ambiguity and dread to the very end. Like Curtis, we’re not sure what’s really happening either. Scenes are structured to keep us squarely behind the eyes of Curtis, and increasingly off-balance. As Obi-Wan Kenobi once instructed, many of the truths we cling to depend greatly on our own point of view.

“Take Shelter” operates on several levels, harmonically. The straightforward thriller elements – eerie visuals, sudden scares, an uneasy musical score – provide a visceral edge to the family’s emotional anxiety. Those fears are, in turn, enhanced by quasi-paranormal elements that suggest Curtis’ dilemma may be part of a larger and much, much scarier picture.

On still another level, the film has a deliberate resonance with the current cultural climate in which utter catastrophe (ecological, political, economic – take your pick) seems right around the corner.

A film this layered needs performers up to the task. Good thing it has two of the best actors working today in the lead roles. With his heavy brow and stooped gait, Michael Shannon has no trouble conveying Curtis’ pain – he seems to be literally carrying the weight of the world. But the actor also reveals Curtis’ essential decency and gentleness as he labors to protect his vulnerable family.

It’s an amazing performance. I couldn’t take my eyes off Shannon, which is really saying something considering that he shares several scenes with the equally formidable Jessica Chastain. She takes what could have been a bystander role, and delivers a performance of burning clarity.

“Take Shelter” ends on a strange note indeed, and there’s no way to discuss it without revealing too much. But bear in mind, if you see the film, that “Take Shelter” is broadcasting on multiple frequencies, as it were. Also, remember what Obi-wan said.

Take Shelter
Grade: A
Director: Jeff Nichols
Cast: Michael Shannon, Jessica Chastain, Tova Stewart, Shea Whigham, Ray McKinnon
Length: 2 hours
Rated R for language and thematic material
www.sonyclassics.com/takeshelter

"Restless"

You’ve got the radiant Mia Wasikowska (“Alice in Wonderland”) sharing the lead with Henry Hopper – son of the late, great Dennis Hopper. Veteran director Gus Van Sant is at the helm, and Danny Elfman is on the musical score.

There is, unfortunately, the matter of the script.

“Restless” tells the story of young Annabel Cotton (Wasikowska), a terminally ill cancer patient who makes the acquaintance, one gloomy evening, of the gaunt and mopey Enoch Brae, who likes to crash funerals and dress like Morrissey circa 1989.

It seems that Enoch recently lost his parents in a car crash and was in a coma himself for several months. Together, the two teenagers have a proximity to death that young people simply shouldn’t have.

Oh, and Enoch sees dead people.

First-time screenwriter Jason Lew takes this premise and boldly goes where several films have already gone, long before. The script cribs elements from “Harold and Maude” to “Love Story” to the entire career output of Wes Anderson. Quirky pop music plays as Enoch and Annie face death with carefully hip wardrobe choices and insufferably glib gallows humor.

In a dozen different scenes, each of which stops the movie cold, Enoch and Annie exchange the sort of self-consciously eccentric dialogue usually associated with eighth-grade goth girls.

Consider this passage, in which Enoch explains to Annie – on the first date, mind you – that his best friend is actually the ghost of a World War Two kamikaze pilot named Hiroshi.

Annie: “Does he fly?”

Enoch: “He used to. He was a kamikaze.”

Annie: “One of those guys who crashed into ships and things?”

Enoch: “Yeah, one of those guys.”

Annie: “So you’re haunted then?”

Enoch: “I guess so.”

Annie: “Huh.”

Despite the precious dialogue, the film’s magical realism elements are its strongest. For instance, its suggested near the end that Enoch sees Hiroshi for a particular reason. When Annie starts seeing the ghost too, it has a devastating significance.

Wasikowska gives a strong performance, exposing the layers of Annie’s fear and anger about facing death at age 17. It’s a real testament to Wasikowska’s abilities as a film actor – all of the film’s best scenes belong to her.

In fact, I had time to reflect on this while tuning out the film’s interminable final scenes. Really good screen actors like Wasikowska express themselves with very specific gestures, phrasings, facial expressions and physical postures. Weirdly, it’s in that very specificity that they convey the universal emotions we connect with as viewers.

I’m forever amazed at this. As bad as this movie is, I couldn’t take my eyes off Annie.

As a total package, though, “Restless” comes off as too twee, too clever, too self-conscious. Worst of all, it feels emotionally dishonest, which simply does not play when your movie is about a teenage girl with terminal cancer. (I haven’t seen it yet, but word is that the similarly themed “50/50,” in theaters now, finds the tone that “Restless” can’t.)

Also, director Van Sant wastes a lot of time pointing his camera at things that aren’t Mia Wasikowska, which suggests a worrying lack of judgment.

Grade: D
Director: Gus Van Sant
Cast: Mia Wasikowska, Henry Hopper, Ryo Kase, Schuyler Fisk
Length: 1 hour, 31 minutes
Rated PG-13 for thematic elements and brief sensuality

"The Names of Love"

As a hardcore left-wing activist, Baya Benmamoud – her dad is Algerian – is forever getting into arguments with right-wing “fascists.” Rather than debate them or attack them, Baya sleeps with her political opponents to convert them to her cause. Since Baya is portrayed by the beautiful French actress Sara Forestier, this literal reading of “make love, not war” principle proves to be enormously successful. Everybody wins!

“The Names of Love” is a rare beast – a French sex comedy that’s actually funny. Director Michel Leclerc has clearly studied his Woody Allen films, and the movie plays out like a Gallic “Annie Hall” with lots of political jokes and plenty of full frontal nudity.

As a romantic comedy, the film also makes some interesting choices. For instance, you might expect that the guy Baya finally falls for would be a hardcase conservative with a secret heart of gold.

But no, instead Baya finds herself returning to the somber Arthur Martin (Jacques Gamblin), a rather apolitical veterinarian who specializes in the spread of avian flu. Arthur regards the free-spirited Baya with something akin to scientific wonder. Her utter lack of sexual inhibition fascinates him, and she stirs in him feelings that he’s forgotten he possessed in the first place.

With the all the sexual elements, you might also expect “The Names of Love” to come across like a hard-R, Judd Apatow-style comedy. But again, the film confounds expectations by exploring some rather heavy and sophisticated themes about immigration, identity and public policy in modern-day France. One funny scene even manages to wring some humor out of the issue of French complicity in the Holocaust, which is rather tricky to pull off in the best of circumstances.

As a cinematic import, however, “The Names of Love” has some weaknesses. Much of the humor is political, contemporary, and specific to French culture. Arthur Martin, for instance, is apparently the name of a popular line of French appliances – as a running gag, this is rather lost on American audiences. The movie also features a cameo by a politician who appears to be the French equivalent of Al Gore.

But director Leclerc keeps the tone light, and most of the romantic comedy gags translate just fine. Gamblin and Forestier have a terrific chemistry in their scenes together, and the film uses some clever flashback techniques to lend weight to the relationship. Baya is half Arab, you see, and Arthur is half Jewish. The film’s essential message – racism is bad – is a little conspicuous, maybe, but certainly agreeable.

“The Names of Love” is unrated, but would surely get an R for all the sex and nudity, which says more about our broken ratings systems than it does about the film. This movie is a lot of fun, and a fascinating example of how filmmakers tackle the mainstream rom-com on the other side of the pond.

Grade: B
Director: Michel Leclerc
Cast: Sara Forestier, Jacques Gamblin, Zinedine Soualem
Length: 1 hour, 32 minutes
unrated
www.musicboxfilms.com/the-names-of-love

"The Whistleblower"

The film begins with Bolkovac navigating a divorce and working too hard at her job as a cop in Nebraska. Desperate for money so she can resolve child custody issues, she accepts a six-month contract with a private security firm in Bosnia.

Bolkovac soon discovers that postwar Bosnia is a desperate place indeed, and that the international police force administered by the U.N. is rife with neglect and corruption. Nevertheless, Bolkovac takes her duties seriously. She initiates the first successful prosecution of domestic violence and is eventually appointed head of the U.N.’s Gender Affairs bureau.

After a raid at a local bar, Bolkovac uncovers evidence of a brutal sex trafficking ring in which girls – some as young as 14 – are sold to the very peacekeepers who are supposed to be protecting them. In one pivotal passage, Bolkovac explores the back room of the bar with a flashlight and the filmmakers provide a five-minute masterclass on cinema technique. In a scene with no dialogue or even sound, the depravity and cruelty of the girls’ situation is told in a sequence of images – bloody mattresses, a pile of syringes, chains driven into the walls.

First-time feature director Larysa Kondracki keeps the storytelling lean and efficient throughout, as Bolkovac’s investigation starts to threaten the U.N.’s entire mission in Bosnia. It soon becomes clear that certain members of the private security firm aren’t just clients of the sex trafficking ring, they’re actively complicit in and profiting from it.

The second half of the movie works essentially as a suspense thriller, with Weisz trying to tell friend from foe among her colleagues, including Monica Belluci as a frosty government official, David Strathairn as an Internal Affairs investigator, and Vanessa Redgrave as U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights.

“The Whistleblower” keeps its attention focused properly. The brutality of the crimes the film deals with demands a solemnity of approach, and director Kondracki avoids the usual flourishes of the Hollywood thriller. She also puts a tragic face to the story by following the story of one particular Ukranian girl, from her initial abduction to her final fate.

But be forewarned – the film contains several scenes of shocking sexual violence. These sequences had a visceral effect on me; I found them literally nauseating. The images are there for a reason – this isn’t cynical torture porn – but the context and realism of the scenario make them that much more disturbing.

By far the film’s greatest asset is the powerhouse performance from Rachel Weisz, who has a half-dozen different scenes that land like gut punches. My guess is she’s a lock for an Oscar nomination this year.

“The Whistleblower” has occasional problems with clarity. All those governmental acronyms and thick Slavic accents muddy several scenes. But overall, this is a tough, effective film. Title cards appended to the movie’s final scenes provide facts from the real-life investigation, plus some sobering statistics about international sex trafficking.

Grade: A-
Director: Larysa Kondracki
Cast: Rachel Weisz, Monica Bellucci, Vanessa Redgrave, David Strathairn
Length: 1 hour, 52 minutes
Rated R for disturbing violent content including a brutal sexual assault, graphic nudity and language
www.thewhistleblower-movie.com

It’s like the old Irish proverb says: Nothing can ruin a good cup of tea like running afoul of an international cocaine smuggling ring.

"The Guard"

In the often funny, often indecipherable Irish comedy “The Guard,” Brendan Gleeson plays Sergeant Gerry Boyle, the unorthodox but honest cop who patrols rural County Galway in Ireland. Boyle is no saint – he has a standing arrangement with the local escort service and enjoys sampling the occasional clubs drugs he pulls from the pockets of delinquent teens. When a local crime figure is found with a professionally placed bullet in his head, Boyle regards the death as a proper comeuppance, more a paperwork nuisance than a crime.

But as played by Gleeson in a rich comic performance, Boyle also has a shaggy nobility and a rigid code of honor. He protects the local kids, visits his ailing mum, and stubbornly defies his better-dressed, on-the-take superiors down at headquarters. Boyle’s routine is disrupted, however, with the discovery of a major cocaine smuggling operation in sleepy Galway.

Enter the straitlaced FBI agent Wendell Everett, played by the usually infallible Don Cheadle. Boyle and Everett proceed to investigate the case and get on each other’s nerves in classic buddy cop style. “The Guard” has plenty of funny scenes, most of which rely on Gleeson’s proficiency with colorfully profane Irish idioms. The bad guys – a trio of semi-competent drug runners led by tough guy Mark Strong (“Sherlock Holmes”) – have some good routines, too. In one funny scene, Strong’s character despairs over the state of the world when the hayseed Galway cops don’t even know how to handle a proper pay-off.

Cheadle gets a few good laughs as the fish-out-of-water American, but seems to be idling for much of the movie. As he’s demonstrated in other films, like the “Ocean’s 11” franchise, Cheadle can steal scenes at will with his comic chops and high-octane charisma. With “The Guard,” he never quite puts it into gear.

Director John Michael McDonagh, working from his own script, keeps the energy up with a brisk pace and a playful visual style of bright primary colors. He also gives the characters room to breathe, extending scenes for throwaway dialogue digressions in Tarantino style. Many snappy jokes are made at the expense of, oh, Bertrand Russell, Disneyland, racism, Derringer pistols, Chet Baker … these sorts of things.

As the title suggests, “The Guard” is focused on its protagonist and is best appreciated as an artfully comic character study. The buddy-cop nonsense and crime procedural elements are really just there to give Gleeson’s portrait something to hang on. The film has one rather big problem, though: Gleeson’s thick Irish brogue is often literally indecipherable. I grew up with Scotch-Irish uncles who slipped into Gaelic after too many whiskey sours, but Gleeson’s mumbly, rapid-fire line readings and tortured phrasings had me wishing for subtitles several times.

It’s some weird testament to the script and performances that I found the movie as funny as I did, because I think I missed about half the jokes.

Grade: B
Director: John Michael McDonagh
Cast: Brendan Gleeson, Don Cheadle, Mark Strong, Fionnula Flanagan
Length: 1 hour, 36 minutes Rated R for pervasive language, some violence, drug material and sexual content
www.sonyclassics.com/theguard