Warner Bros. Pictures
Every once in a while you’ll hear about a movie that’s getting great reviews but for one reason or another it either skips your town or sneaks in and out so quickly you don’t even know it’s been there. What makes this even more curious is when said movie is from a major studio. This seems to be what happened with Midnight Special, which Warner Bros. rolled out week by week across the country with little fanfare in some cities (I didn’t even know the film had opened in Baltimore until I was at another screening and saw it on the marquee). It probably didn’t help that the movie was an original story and not a sequel (which should be a good thing), and opened the week before Batman v Superman. At its peak, it was only playing on 521 screens and it made $6.2 million worldwide on an estimated $18 million budget. So what happened?
Midnight Special was probably just a hard sell with a plot that had many questions and plot points that could not be given away in the trailers. It also had that nonsensical title which told you absolutely nothing about the movie, and a poster that looked like something straight from Steven Spielberg. So what is the movie about? Two men, childhood friends Roy and Lucas, and a young boy, Roy’s son, are on the run from an FDLS cult-like group and the government. The boy, it turns out, has some kind of special powers that causes blinding white light to shoot from his eyes. Apparently, if anyone looks into that light, they can see things. What things, we’re never told. The cult believes the boy is their savior, a protector for the end times which is fast approaching on their calendar; the government thinks he’s a weapon. On their journey to … somewhere nondescript, they pick up Alton’s mother Sarah and the four have to avoid capture to get Alton to wherever it is he needs to be. Of course, the government does intervene, but Alton may have an ally in Sevier, the one person Alton will speak to. Can Alton get to his destination and fulfill his destiny, or is there really something else at play?
Director Jeff Nichols loves to play with ambiguity. He’s already known for removing key expository scenes from his previous films because he doesn’t want the audience to just get his own explanation, he wants to audience to participate in forming their own ideas about what’s happening on screen. Sometimes that approach works, sometimes it doesn’t. In this case I’m not sure it does. Midnight Special does grab you at the beginning, and has a few moments of pure cinematic spectacle, like when what appears to be an Alton triggered shower of meteorites rains down on part of Texas, but the ambiguities of the story start to erode whatever interest you may have had, and the reveal is one of those “oooooooooookay” moments. The biggest problem is that we’re just plopped down right in the middle of a story with no background information. I’m not one who requires every little detail to be spelled out for me, but there just seems to be a lot of information purposely withheld so the audience can play along. And I still don’t know why the movie is called Midnight Special.
Complaints about the storytelling aside — and your own mileage may vary — the film is directed and edited very well, and Nichols has assembled a terrific cast. Michael Shannon, who has appeared in all of Nichols’ films to date (and plans to be in any of his other projects), is very good as Paul, his son’s protector willing to do whatever it takes to get Alton to wherever he needs to go, even if he doesn’t even know the final destination himself. It’s a solid performance, but one wonders if he knew what was going on with the story because his character speaks in ambiguities that somehow still make other want to follow him (like how did he convince Lucas to toss away his law enforcement background to be their driver?).
Joel Edgerton is also very good as Lucas, a former state trooper who seems to have joined Paul and Alton on their quest even though he has no idea what that quest is. It isn’t until late in the film that he finally believes in Alton, and Edgerton’s performance at that point takes an emotional turn. Jaeden Lieberher is also very good as Alton. For most of the film, he just sits silently while all the action takes place around him, but after a pivotal moment about two-thirds of the way through the movie, he takes charge, giving the adults in the room their instructions. Adam Driver, as Sevier, doesn’t have a lot to do and his performance is a bit monotone, but Kirsten Dunst, as Sarah, just grabs your attention whenever she’s on screen. She really portrays that motherly love, even though her former cult family tells the authorities she abandoned her child (a plot point explained in the Blu-ray special features but not in the movie itself). She really becomes the voice of reason for Paul as the film rushes to its climax. It really is a remarkable performance and the film could have used more of her.
Midnight Special is a good film, a competently crafted and well-acted film, but it falls short of being great because of the director’s indulgences in ambiguity. Warner Bros. Home Entertainment has done an excellent job transferring the movie to Blu-ray. The image is gorgeous, showing off cinematographer Adam Stone’s skills to their best advantage. The daylight scenes are well balanced and the brightness is never over-blown, and the film’s many night scenes keep the black levels deep and dark with no visible artifacting. The Blu-ray features a DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 track and a Dolby Digital 5.1 track. The DTS-HD track is very robust when it needs to be. The surrounds don’t get too much of a workout, but when they do, like during the meteorite storm or when Lucas revs the engine of his car, you are right in the middle of the action. It’s a very impressive track for such a small film.
The Blu-ray and DVD contain the same Special Features. The first is labeled “Origins” and contains five chapters that can be viewed individually or as one featurette (running 12:36). Each chapter is a very short bio of the five main characters – Roy, Lucas, Sarah, Alton and Sevier – with some background information filled in by writer/director Nichols and the actors shedding a little light on their actions and motivations (like Sarah’s “abandonment” of Alton). The second featurette, “The Unseen World” (5:12), delves slightly deeper into Alton’s destination but is best viewed after having seen the movie. The Blu-ray also comes with a Digital HD version of the movie. Unfortunately, that’s the depth of the bonus material.
I really, really wanted to love the movie after reading so many positive reviews, but I just ended up liking it, appreciating the performances and what Nichols was able to put on screen with the budget alloted by the studio (the fact that the movie got made at all is a story unto itself with the exec who greenlighted the film getting fired before production started). It’s a competently made movie, but for a fourth cinematic effort, Nichols isn’t quite yet the auteur he thinks he is … but he certainly shows promise. What you get from Midnight Special is entirely up to you.
Midnight Special is now available on Blu-ray DVD and Digital HD. Warner Bros. Home Entertainment generously provided Hotchka with a Blu-ray for reviewing purposes.
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