Film Review: Shelter

About Shelter (2010)Psychological horror/thriller starring Julianne Moore. When forensic psychiatrist and multiple personality disorder specialist Dr Cara Jessup (Moore) examines new patient Adam (Jonathan Rhys-Meyers), she unearths a string of dark secrets surrounding his condition that places her and those close to her in grave danger. Forced to question her strong beliefs in science and in God, Cara must race against time to solve the mystery at the heart of Adam’s disturbing case.

Starring: Julianne Moore, Jonathan Rhys Meyers, Jeffrey DeMunn

Directed by: Michael Cooney

Runtime: 112 minutes

Studio: The Weinstein Company and Anchor Bay Entertainment

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Review: Shelter 

I remember first seeing Jonathan Rhys Meyers in Gormenghast and finding him a revelation as the dark and twisted Steerpike. Since then he’s been racking up the credits on both TV and the big screen. Shelter saw him paired up with Julianne Moore, another good acting talent, so my hopes were understandably high when I sat down to tackle this psychological thriller.

Widowed psychiatrist Cara Harding (Julianne Moore) delivers incriminating evidence at the outset of the film that condemns one prisoner to a lethal injection. Heading home she is contacted by her father Dr Harding (Jeffrey DeMunn) who beseeches her to see a new patient. Cara meets David Bernburg (Jonathan Rhys Meyers) who is wheelchair bound but shows no indication of mental illness until the phone rings and the name Adam Saber is spoken to David. Suddenly David turns aggressive, answering only to the name Adam and even more frightening he leaves his wheelchair and begins to walk! Cara is immediately intrigued but in trying to get to the bottom of David/Adam’s condition she unearths some frightening revelations.

Shelter begins well with an intriguing meeting between Cara and David. The seemingly normal and polite young man quickly changes when Cara’s dad rings and asks to speak with Adam. While David is kind and gentle, Adam is aggressive and abusive. Cara begins researching the case, believing split personality is to blame. When her research leads her to the home of David Bernburg, Cara is stunned to learn that David was murdered years before! This is clearly more than split personality issues. Cara’s patient is becoming dead people but how and why? Cara begins deploying some techniques to try and get to the heart of her patient’s illness but things become even more complicated when David/Adam take on the personalities of recently deceased people.

Shelter is one of those films that starts well but fades as it goes on. The first half is much better than the second especially as we learn the reasons behind David/Adam’s condition. Cara is a woman who has lost her faith in God following the death of her husband and conveniently it is God she will need to get her through this latest crisis in her life which escalates out of control and leaves her father, brother Stephen (Nathan Corddry) and daughter in danger. The longer it goes on the more predictable it becomes how the ending will play out. The revelations about David/Adam are worth waiting for to be honest but after that the film quickly loses its appeal.

Rhys-Meyers and Moore are well cast here and offer plenty of contrast. Meyers in particular has a lot of work to do playing various personalities and he acquits himself as I’ve come to expect. It’s just a shame that with two great leads they couldn’t enjoy being cast in a film with a better second half. This isn’t a bad film, it’s an effective psychological thriller in places but by the end it won’t leave you feeling dazzled.

Shelter boasts a better cast than it does storyline. The film has a good opening half which maintains the interest but once the revelations have come out it quickly weakens. I speculated in the first half about how the film would turn out and could never have predicted the truth but sadly I was left feeling some of my suspicions were actually better than the end product.

Verdict: 2/5

(Film source: reviewer’s own copy)

Film Review: Shelter | Thank you for reading Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dave