Movie Review: Midnight Special (English)

Midnight Special

Even trying to tell what kind of movie Jeff Nichols' Midnight Special is risks revealing a lot more than what I should. Is it a sci-fi parable, or a crime thriller, or a road movie, or is it about some religious conspiracy? I would love to tell you, but I would rather not. Instead I would leave it to your imagination, just like what Nichols does, toying with the unknown. With a TV amber alert as the sole means of setting the context to the story, Midnight Special, chiefly about a supernaturally gifted (and photosensitive) boy hounded by the FBI and a doomsday religious cult, is as genre-defying as it can get, alternating between thrilling car chases, a steady sense of intrigue and mystery, and carefully employed visual effects, all building into a wow-worthy mystifying climax, while leaving us with a lot of unknowns. Almost.