What I liked about this film was the subtlety. Until a gut-wrenching scene toward the end, Michael Shannon's performance is refreshingly restrained, devoid of the hysterics that often accompany films dealing with this subject matter. The socio-political aspects lurk well under the surface, and the screenwriter never hits the viewer over the head.
What I didn't like about the film was the ending. The film should have concluded with Curtis making the choice his mother could not - to put family above his psychology - and open the doors of the shelter, without either Curtis or the viewer knowing what happens next. But the film goes five minutes too long, pulling the rug out from under the viewer as Curtis' premonitions are ultimately validated. (If the Myrtle Beach sequence was intended to be "ambiguous," as some commentators suggest, it didn't work - unlike Curtis' other premonitions, his wife is the one who actually experiences the oily rain, which clearly suggests that the end of the world is in fact being experienced outside of Curtis' head.) I can appreciate an ending like that in the right movie (e.g., Bill Paxton's 'Frailty'). But THIS is not the right movie.
What I didn't like about the film was the ending. The film should have concluded with Curtis making the choice his mother could not - to put family above his psychology - and open the doors of the shelter, without either Curtis or the viewer knowing what happens next. But the film goes five minutes too long, pulling the rug out from under the viewer as Curtis' premonitions are ultimately validated. (If the Myrtle Beach sequence was intended to be "ambiguous," as some commentators suggest, it didn't work - unlike Curtis' other premonitions, his wife is the one who actually experiences the oily rain, which clearly suggests that the end of the world is in fact being experienced outside of Curtis' head.) I can appreciate an ending like that in the right movie (e.g., Bill Paxton's 'Frailty'). But THIS is not the right movie.