Shelter Me

All criticism is subjective and based off of individual experience. With that disclaimer being said, I don’t think I’ve ever seen a WLW movie that absolutely shouted its subtext at me the way Shelter Me did.

Shelter Me is a movie probably meant to challenge preconceived notions about people. The film starts with lesbian couple, Mara and Anna finding a Moroccan immigrant named Anis has hidden in their trunk to get passage into Italy. Anna takes this one step further and invites Anis to to stay with them and gets him a job. Mara is initially much more cold to him but by the end of the second act, they’re a happy, non-traditional family for at least a moment. However, the situation is not sustainable. Anis has sex with Mara while she’s very drunk. So, Mara and Anna ask him to leave. Anis’ workplace also fires him due to a mixture of anti-immigration sentiment and the fact that honestly, Anis is a bit of a shit.

That’s a more objective description of the events of the movie. I would now like to express what I feel was the very loud creator subtext of Shelter Me. Oh so you like people? How about if those people were LESBIANS! What about IMMIGRANTS? What would you do if an immigrant snuck in using your car! Would you let me stay with you? What if he was HOMOPHOBIC? But he can learn! Because people can change. Oh no wait, he’s sexually harassing one of the lesbians. What do you think about people now? And what if the immigrant did CRIME? What if he STOLE A CAR? Should he be shot? Get ready to challenge some preconceived notions, audience!

For me, it feels like Shelter Me was trying too hard to be “challenging.” This isn’t inherently bad but it makes the characterization feel shallow. Mara and Anna aren’t lesbians because they like women. They’re lesbians because it’s a more noteworthy choice of leads than a straight couple. The film takes the very broad, social discussion of illegal immigration and narrows it down to a specific instance. But the character work is weak so it doesn’t work on a personal level either. It never feels like these are just three characters dealing with these problems. They feel like mouthpieces for opinions and experiences that would make a challenging film.

It’s also pretty tired for a movie about illegal immigration to be told from the point of view of the legal inhabitants of a country. Anis is not a point of view character so the lack of insight there is double. Because he is a pretty heavily flawed character, I don’t think he was a good representation for illegal immigrants. And of course, he shouldn’t have to be. I should look at him as an individual character, not a representation. But on the other hand, this movie does bash you over the head with how much it’s about immigration and as he is the only immigrant in sight so it’s hard not to.

While the film has lots to say on immigration, it has a blind spot about sexual consent. Mara and Anis have sex following the death of Mara’s father. During this scene, Mara is incredibly drunk. Like, too drunk to consent. This event leads to a falling out between her and Anna. There is not mention of her extreme level of intoxication in their argument over this event. It’s just taken as fact that she fucked up by cheating on her girlfriend. The women also let Anis stay after this until a second scene where he harasses Mara. This all could have been fodder for good and even challenging discussion but it just sort of happens and doesn’t effect anything. You could remove the drunk sex scene from the movie and nothing would change except I wouldn’t have written a paragraph condemning the scene.

Shelter Me takes the spaghetti approach to its story. It throws a bunch of stuff at the wall to see what sticks. And hey, some of it did. But the film is much better at asking questions of its audience than it is at also engaging in that potential discussion. It tries to stay apolitical and neutral despite being the medium presenting this story. The film didn’t challenge me the way I think it wanted to. On the other hand, I’m definitely thinking about the film and a few of the hypotheticals it brought up so I guess that makes it at least a partial success?

Overall rating: 5.1/10

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