Film Diary 2012 - Chronicle (From The Argus)

Film Diary 2012 - Chronicle

1:20pm Friday 10th February 2012 in Blogs By Owain Paciuszko - Seat 13

We've all probably wondered about having super-powers and the things we'd do if we could, for example, move objects with our mind or fly, and in the early stages of this debut feature from Josh Trank that idea is explored wonderfully and realistically.

Focusing on three senior high schoolers who discover a mysterious glowing rock in the woods near a student rave, the set-up is handled deftly and casually tossed aside. The film is shot from the point of view of Andrew (Dane DeHaan), an outsider with a terminally ill mother and an alcoholic, abusive father, he decides to start documenting his life on camera, and one immediately suspects - as characters later point out - that Andrew is trying to create a barrier between himself and having to face up to or try to deal with his problems. His closest friend is his cousin, Matt (Alex Russell) an awkwardly intellectual guy, who drives him to school each day, and then there's Steve Montgomery (Michael B. Jordan) who is running for class president and has politics in mind for his future.

Once these three discover the rock, and develop telekinetic abilities their friendship is strengthened and then tested. At first they use these powers to cause a little mischief and then to impress their schoolmates, but, inevitably things go awry.

There are a number of things that sit awkwardly with this film, the 'found footage' template is limiting, and whilst having characters able to move the camera with their mind affords the director license to perform some more interesting angles, it still feels contrived and clumsy, especially when the film decides to 'leap' into other cameras that may be capturing the action - such as CCTV footage or the camera of video-blogger Casey (Ashley Hinshaw) - there are certain moments where it feels odd or all-too-convenient that somebody decided to hit record. Perhaps, like Wes Bentley's character in American Beauty, it would have been better to have just used the personal cameras of the characters as an occasional story-telling device, or, like the masterful District 9, just graduated from that early docu-style set-up into 'regular' film-making.

Additionally the story does suffer once powers start to be abused, with the character arcs feeling lazy and predictable come the finale, which - again thanks to the found footage conceit - doesn't manage to build the levels of drama and tension that it could so easily have managed. However, that's not to say we are not invested in the characters, it is thanks to the strength of those early scenes and the chemistry between the three leads that the film really works as well as it does.

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