Chronicle: A Review

In Chronicle we are seeing the realized potential of the "found footage" style of film making.  In that the film itself uses the more intimate nature and setting of having our characters themselves film the events, but at the same time not feeling restricted to make the movie as "plausible" as possible.  We get to know our main characters very well in a short period of time by seeing them as they see each other, and then get to watch from their perspective as events change them forever.  Our protagonist is Andrew, a social outcast with an achingly familiar story of abuse and neglect.  He first buys a camera for the vague purpose of "filming everything" and quickly uses it to escape.  He welcomes the barrier it sets between him and the world, hoping it will protect him from his misery.  When his cousin, Matt, drags him (and the camera) to a party, he is brought along by Matt and another student, Steve, to film a cave that they found.  Inside, they discover a strange glowing formation that gives them super-powers.  We follow as the relationship between the three boys and their new powers changes them, but doesn't necessarily solve their problems for them.  We see that even an amazing gift can't heal the pain already deep inside, and that when someone feels they have nothing to lose, the consequences can be severe.

The primary reason Chronicle excels where other "found footage" movies have come up short is that at no point during the film is it never about the three boys.  Every scene, every moment of the film is about Andrew, Matt and Steve and how they are changing in relation to each other and the world around them.  We see Matt and Steve, already well-adjusted kids, using the power as an outlet for more fun, as a way to open all borders for them and hurdle any roadblocks.  Why not rent a cheap hotel room in Maui and just fly there?  But, for Andrew, the world has always been a hostile and painful place.  His mother is dying, and his father has turned to alcoholism in light of a work injury, trying to escape his own painful existence.  Andrew is abused by his father, graphically, right in front of us many times in the film.  Then Andrew is picked on at school, and made fearful for his own safety by neighborhood thugs.  There is literally nowhere Andrew is safe, and then he finds himself with the power to do anything he can think of.  But, even though he shares these powers with two peers, and for a while finds himself a new place to be, even that comes falling down on him when he loses control and sends a car into a lake accidentally.  Now, even his powers have rules imposed on them, limits to who he gets to be.  As time ticks by, we see Andrew question his relationships with everyone around him, retreating further and further into his own abilities, coming to believe he is a new breed of animal and not to be held in place by the laws of man.  By the time Matt or Steve realize anything is wrong, it is too late for Andrew.  We see the birth of a legitimate super-villain in the "real world" and we get to see it minute by minute, scene by scene.

Not to be overlooked is the editing of the film.  The real strength of the film is how well it is edited.  It combines dozens of sources into a linear, efficient narrative, from cell phone cams, to security cameras, to Police cruiser dashboard cams.  The film starts being shot solely from the perspective of Andrew's camera, he is our protagonist and who we are to identify with.  Then, a second source is introduced fairly early on in the love interest of one of the boys, but used sparingly at first, just to give us an outsider's perspective on the three main characters and how the world views them.  Then, as events begin to spiral out of control, more and more perspectives are added to the narrative flow, and we spend less time seeing things from Andrew's perspective, until we are not seeing anything from his POV during the climax.  The climax is shot entirely from outside sources, eyewitnesses to an event they can't understand, edited together masterfully to finally pull us, the audience, back from the three boys and let us see the bigger picture, and the scale of it all.  By doing this, they are able to really reinforce Andrew disconnecting from the world, and as a result, disconnecting from the audience.  He stops viewing himself as a human, and stops doing the things he did as a human, like filming his life, and spending time with his friends and family.  In addition to this, the editing maintains a brisk pace that keeps the audience involved in every scene, never dashing past moments, but also not lingering too long on any.  The balance works out well, as the shots on Andrew's camera tend to be long and breathe, while the shots on outsider's cameras are rapid and almost chaotic.

Chronicle is a great character-driven science fiction film that uses the "found footage" style to not only tell a story, but to enhance the arcs of characters being filmed.  A gem in the barren February/January cinematic landscape, to be sure.  8/10