Scott Gardner | Sony Pictures Classics

From left to right: Tova Stewart stars as Hannah and Michael Shannon stars as Curtis in the new movie “Take Shelter.”

In “Take Shelter,” a new indie thriller from director Jeff Nichols (“Shotgun Stories”), father and husband Curtis (Michael Shannon) senses that a storm is coming. But is that storm real, or is it simply a psychological manifestation of his crumbling psyche? Does Curtis really need to protect his family from the approaching storm, or does he need to protect them from himself?

“Take Shelter” is Nichols’ sophomore feature, and while it shines at times, it is mostly uneven. He does his best work with the very human parts of the movie; he’s very much an actors’ director.

Yet Nichol is responsible for the movie’s failures, too. The first half’s reliance on traditional horror movie scares cheapens the second half. Every scary vision features a jump that even the most casual moviegoer would know is coming. A mysterious figure stands in the road; a shadowy hand slams onto a car window. There are other visions of spectacular storms that work much better, like the one in which birds plummet from the sky. Nichols should have stuck to the creative rather than the clichéd.

Nichols also wrote the screenplay, and, despite its very strong dialogue, it was too structurally predictable for me to appreciate. The last-second twist is nothing worthy of Hitchcock or even Shyamalan. And though that may not have been Nichols’ goal, last-second twists and ambiguous endings have become main topics of conversation about films (see: “Inception”).

Strong performances by the two leads are the highlight of the movie. Shannon builds on his work from “Revolutionary Road” to create an American everyman on the edge of a breakdown. He’s vulnerable yet dangerous, and the one time he really does lose his temper, it’s Oscar-reel worthy.

Jessica Chastain, popping up in one of her seven (yes, seven) roles this year, turns in more great work as the suffering wife. Yet Chastain does not just rehash her work from a similar role in “The Tree of Life.” Instead, she manages to turn what is usually a one-note role into something undeniably human. Her terror during a scene in which Curtis has a seizure seems especially real. Familiar faces of character actors Lisa Gay Hamilton (“The Practice”) and Kathy Baker (“Edward Scissorhands”) are great in cameo roles.

“Take Shelter” is at times refreshingly original and at other times frustratingly clichéd. It never fulfills its promise, and it was only my investment in the characters that kept me in my chair.