Movie review – Shelter

I had most of Saturday to kill and managed to get hold of Tracey who also has a CineWorld card. The next film starting was Shelter so off we went.

Plot-in-a-nutshell: A psychologist encounters a man with multiple personalities, only the number of personalities seems to be increasing… and including people she knows.

I had no preconceptions about Shelter at all as I’d not even seen a trailer as far as I could recall. A quick check on the website said it was a psychological thriller which was fine. As an aside I was ridiculously tired when I went to the cinema so probably wasn’t mentally fired up for watching two hours of film, but never mind. I didn’t realise how tired until Tracey nudged me and said “You were snoring”. Don’t take this as comment on the film which was actually alright.

Julianne Moore plays Cara, a single mother after her husband was killed a year or so earlier. I last saw Moore in the rather enjoyable Chloe and she’s just as good in this although it’s not quite as good a film. Her father introduces her to Adam (Jonathan Rhys Meyers), a man who seems to have a fair few identities kicking around in his head.

As she investigates these personalities, she finds there seems to be something linking them – but to tell you more would be spoiling the story.

There’s a bit of a mix of old-style horror, thriller and religious subtexts. Indeed, the film blurb focusses on the religious aspect and this does actually have a bearing on a plot point later on in the story.

While Moore is good, Meyers is excellent given the number of roles he’s actually playing as Adam’s personality expands and fractures over the course of the film.

It does get a little hokey and the very final twist is almost expected rather than being a shock. It’s still creepy though!

The fact that I only nodded off very briefly despite being so exhausted says a lot for Shelter. It isn’t a classic – Silence of the Lambs is a better thriller and Drag Me To Hell a better horror to grasp at two movies along vaguely similar lines. It does run a little too long but it’s entertaining enough and doesn’t labour its points.

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