Author’s Note: This review was written back in 2016, yet I never got around to releasing it—hence explaining the contradictory criticisms towards Adam Driver despite Paterson making such claims null and void.
Midnight Special has done what no film’s done before: make Adam Driver tolerable…dare I write, even likable.
Joking (kind of) aside, Midnight Special ends up being both a good film and an underwhelming one. I’m partly to blame for such dissatisfaction, having idealistically high hopes for the film to be director Jeff Nichols’ next Take Shelter—particularly because of Nichols once again collaborating with the great Michael Shannon in the lead role (whose phenomenal performance in Take Shelter elevates the thriller to the next level). What Midnight Special ends up being is more similar in quality to Nichols’ Mud: a decent yet unremarkable film with a solid cast, striking cinematography, and an overabundance in subtlety. Midnight Special is too low-key for its own good, and would have been far more effective with a less subdue, indie atmosphere. I’m not suggesting Midnight Special needed blockbuster levels of explosiveness and action, but more liveliness in its plot and characters—especially its characters—would have done wonders for the film.
Michael Shannon’s performance is a prime example of Midnight Special's lacking. Shannon’s gift lies in his unpredictability and raw emotional intensity. He can naturally switch from effectively calm, collected, detached and professional to explosive, deranged, passionate and aggressive. In Midnight Special, Shannon is restrained to only his subdued persona, with even his most emotional scenes being strangely composed—rarely bringing any intensity. The direction serves to cuts Shannon’s acting abilities in half, leaving the audience with a modest performance from one of the decade’s finest actors.
Yet Midnight Special does have positive aspects to offer, such as impressive visuals, solid editing, and an intriguing plot that begins mysteriously while gradually revealing details and character backgrounds in a relatively engaging fashion. There’s a bunch of fun, little plot twists throughout, though the story’s sci-fi elements do lack in originality: sharing blatant similarities with 80s-90s films such as E.T. and Contact. The film’s acting, while still too subdued, is overall solid and, as mentioned above, offers the first real instance I didn’t leave the theater pissed at Adam Driver (though his performance still feels unnaturally stiff). All in all, Midnight Special is an enjoyable yet sadly underwhelming film that will eventually be buried out of mind by the masses of better films in both past and future years.