Midnight Special (2016), written and directed by Jeff Nichols is a film about a superhero. Alton, the boy at the center of the film’s story possesses so much power that it pains him. The FBI, CIA, Homeland Security, and a fundamentalist religious cult all want him and go to extreme measures to find him. As I was watching this film, I wondered if Alton was a weapon or savior?
The brilliance of the film is how the story oscillates between genres (sci-fi, noir, superhero, to documentary) to deliver a convincing reality of the present that is not so far from a 60 Minutes television segment. There were several references that popped up for me in Midnight Special. Terrence Malick’s humanist storytelling comes to mind with the pace of the story unfolding, and not adding more (with additive visual effects and CGI) to the natural landscape of rural Texas. The film’s main title reminiscent of the Coen Brothers neo-noir classic Blood Simple. The world in which Midnight Special takes place reminded me of the film Annihilation but veered away by its human-centered story with unexceptional characters following a higher order all after this one kid. A more optimistic future.
We first meet Alton in swimming goggles looking through comics like your typical adolescent. As ridiculous as Alton appears, the goggles are protecting him and those around him. A Fox News report keeps playing almost like a marker or reminder of Michael Shannon and Alton running away from their religious cult, or the “ranch.”
As viewers, we witness the extent of Alton’s power as the surroundings around him collapse; flying meteor pieces drop from the sky wherever he goes, grass dry up, structures reminiscent of Zaha Hadid architecture appear out of nowhere, and the light force emanating from Alton’s eyes blinds (or seduces) the people around him. Hence the religious cult going through violent extremes to get Alton back.
Alton doesn’t belong to this world, Earth, or reality of rational world. “I belong in another world. The people of this other world are watching this world.” And he is trying to go where he belongs with the aid of his father Roy (Michael Shannon), Lucas (Joel Edgerton) a former state trooper and Roy’s childhood friend, and his mother Sarah (Kirsten Dunst) and a clumsy FBI analyst (Adam Driver) who is a key part in letting Alton free when the FBI attempt to claim him for their mission.
Midnight Special is an unlikely riveting film touching upon the belief systems of the natural world, divine power, and institutions, pillars of modern life and what happens when they collide, but without any of the Star Wars or Marvel’s flashy gimmicks.
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