Some people sit in class, chewing on their eraser, daydreaming about what they would do if everything were different. If they were richer, stronger, cooler or had a sexier car. Some imagine what it might be like to command nature with the invisible forces of their mind—telekinesis. Chronicle reveals the plight of daydreamers turned disciples of darkness.
Andrew Detmer (Dane DeHaan) is the son of an abusive father and a dying mother whose only comfort from the incessant bullying at school and the monotony of a drab life is his new found obsession with filming everything, including his eating habits during lunch as he sits alone on the bleachers. His cousin Matt Garetty (Alex Russell) is his on-again, off-again confidante whose own dashing charisma is a world away from Matt’s downtrodden, puppy-dog outlook on his miserable existence in Seattle, WA.
It is at a rave where the cousins, along with the Nick-Cannon-look-alike Steve Montgomery (Michael B. Jordan), discover a tunnel dug into the forest floor. After a few minutes of exploration—where the limits of the found footage camerawork are exposed—the trio happen upon an ominous, glowing crystal which grants them superhuman abilities.
Much of the action in Chronicle lies not in the clouds where the cast have learned to zoom around airplanes but in the heated exchanges of anguish between Detmer and those around him who insist that they know what’s good for him and what is not. Detmer, though, is a boy who has finally experienced power when his life has so consistently been defined by weakness and hurt. The cast of Chronicle does such an excellent job of capturing a very teenage naivety coupled with the aggression akin to animals (Detmer later refers to himself as an “apex predator” in a wrenching monologue about the survival of the fittest where he himself is an example of a greater evolved human).
The Blair Witch Project and Cloverfield serve as spiritual predecessors to Chronicle which continues the long line of movies going for gripping realism through the use of “found footage” wherein everything is captured through iPods belonging to bystanders, the tactical cameras being operated by helicopter pilots and most importantly Detmer’s own camera which acts almost as another character. But Chronicle gets something right that very few other movies in the same vein do not; that is: the movie never gets lazy about story and finely-acted performances just because there’s an assumed sense of realism. In fact, our three main characters bring this otherwise bland story to life in what is a strange mixture of comedy and tragedy. The film is an imitation of life and Andrew Detmer is a person of low or base means transforming into someone of greatness, but then the tone shifts to the very tragic tale of that greatness leading to destructive ends.
Chronicle is also remarkable in the risks it takes with its characters. Providing a partially accurate portrayal of high school dynamics and even taking liberties with how it treats its audience. But the movie leaves us with some devastatingly unremarkable efforts with the animations of cars being thrown through the air and lightning being commanded at will. Some may even find the cheap effects hard to get past, and it is a very real fear that the blinding cheapness may rob Chronicle of recognition of all that it has going for it. Score: 7.5/10
Kyle Dunn / Editor in Chief
