Michael Shannon (who previously starred in Nichols’ earlier films Shotgun Stories, Take Shelter and Mud – all excellent) plays Roy, a father on the run with his eight-year-old son, Alton (Jaeden Lieberher). With Joel Edgerton’s tough state trooper in tow, the three flee across Texas from government forces and the creepy representatives of a religious commune. The pursuers’ target is Alton, who appears to be gifted with supernatural powers. The nature of those powers, and the relationship the three leads share with their pursuers, only gradually comes to light. The performances have a similarly slow-burning quality, and the brilliance of the casting and their chemistry together proves to be the film’s backbone. Midnight Special isn’t exactly verbose, its story instead told with a stolen glance or a murmured phrase. Initially, Shannon and Edgerton’s characters seem opaque and difficult to get to know for much of the first half, Adam Driver’s NSA analyst Paul Sevier, one of the many government-types on Alton’s trail, gives the film a spark of personality – once again, Driver shows off his personal brand of off-beat charisma. Yet our empathy for Roy, Lucas and Alton grows almost stealthily; the more we learn about them, the more we can make sense of their intense, furtive personalities. Alton, the kid who’s alternately regarded as a saviour or weapon depending on who you listen to, emerges as a force to be reckoned with; Lieberher’s performance is pleasingly natural here. Kirsten Dunst is given less to do as Alton’s mother, but again, she makes every scene and every movement count. Likewise Sam Shepard, who plays the quietly sinister pastor of the religious group intent on getting Alton back for their own strange purposes. Quiet where most sci-fi thrillers are loud, elegant where most are cluttered, emotional where too many are brash and brainless, Jeff Nichols’ film takes the road-movie framework of Starman and spins it in a wholly different direction. Where Carpenter’s film was about love and loss, Midnight Special deals with a very different stripe of human experience: the love of a parent for a child; the desire to protect them at any cost, and the anguish that results when the outside world comes crashing in. Midnight Special is out in UK cinemas on the 8th April.