Michael Shannon Movies Blog

  Here’s another relic from my fabled ‘W’ Movies Blog. Michael Shannon has provided many offerings for both this and my other ‘Definitive Movies’ blog and for that I thank him. I think it was my exposure to these random films of his that set him up as the candidate for my next blog, the one that you are reading here. As with the others I’ve ported over my plot synopsis from my earlier blog but have added a few extra Shannon focused lines too. The film is a family drama about the onset of Alzheimer's in the elderly mother. Don’t run away - at least that’s what they should have told the old girl who goes for a wander in the middle of the night in a Chicago snow storm. Her husband Robert Forster calls his local bar owing son Michael Shannon who in turn calls the daughter Hilary Swank. They manage to find the old lady but realise that they have problems to address. Shannon wants the old bird moved into a home as he bears the brunt of looking after his age ing parents and is...

  This is an early to mid Shannon offering and one where he gets top billing. Although released in 2007, IMDb says most of the principal photography took place in 2004, making the on screen Shannon around 30 years old. He does look a bit younger than that and a good fit for his character, Son Hayes, the eldest of three brothers. The film is set in the cotton fields of rural Arkansas, in contemporary times. Life is clearly hard with Son and his brothers barely scratching a living. One brother lives in a tent and another in a van. Son himself is a failed gambler with an estranged wife who dreams of something better. One night the boys’ mother shows up, a lady who looks barely older than Shannon himself, who announces that their father has died. The boys show total indifference, failing to ask even how he met his end. They do ask for the details of the funeral which spells trouble from the off. We learn that Dad dumped the mother and three boys and started a new life with a new ...