Andrew Detmer (Dane Dehaan) is a high school-assassin waiting to happen. Despite his often stoic demeanor, an anger ebbs and flows underneath, occasionally manifesting itself in a frustrated outburst. If it’s possible, his aggression is justified: his alcoholic father (Michael Kelly) is verbally and physically abusive, occasionally jabbing Andrew’s temple with a quick right hand, knocking him out of the chair to the floor. In tandem, his mother is dying and each breath is painful struggle. There are no doctor-office flashbacks or concrete diagnosis revealed, but she writhes in pain and emits suffocated cries. These conditions make Andrew an introvert, afraid of confrontation or becoming the center of attention for fear that the fall from grace is worse than the struggle to ascend.
Andrew’s living condition also impels his purchase of a video camera so that he can “record everything.” This is way for him to separate himself from the rest of the world by being a voyeur of people’s actions as opposed to partaking in them; plus, it creates the hand-held, found-footage conceit that we’ve all grown accustomed to.
To Chronicle’s credit, this gimmick works, for the most part. When Andrew has the camera, we feel how shy he is, not solely because he is unseen but because his voice trembles and fades as if he’s moving as far away from his subject as possible. When the camera is passed to his cousin Matt (Alex Russell) or friend, Steve (Michael B. Jordan), they become the default cinematographers and things work pretty smoothly.
At the same time, there are flaws.
The most noticeable are the unnecessary jumps in footage. At times, a dialog ensues, but the frame jumps as if to change angles or if Andrew pauses the camera; however, this is illogical in that there are no beats lost in the conversation. The story is adequate enough to keep the audience interested in the characters, but these moments, of which there are many, feel like an attempt to remind the audience that Chronicle is posing as a documentary, but this is incongruent because the “editing” feels unnatural.
The other issue is when Casey, Matt’s love interest, is introduced. She too carries around a camera to document things to place on her blog. This is a convenient way to film each of them with alternating shots, but the continuity is wonky. When Casey holds her camera, it’s often pointed below his neck, but when Matt’s face is shown on screen, he is perfectly framed. Sure, I’m anal retentive, but this discontinuity occurs a bit too often. Similarly, Casey’s camera is often taken for granted. Andrew is a shut in, so his camera represents a security blanket; even when he becomes a bit unhinged on account of realizing he is the “apex predator” – the most dangerous creature – the camera still makes sense because it becomes his opportunity to document his powers and his abilities. At the same time, when Matt jettisons from Casey’s house to find Andrew, her joining him with a camera just seems silly: as if the conversation were, “Andrew’s going crazy. Quick. Get your camera!” I understand the film sets a precedent for being relayed solely through the amateur eye, but this gets a bit messy during the third act.
Similarly, it’s a mystery how we know that these three boys acquired superpowers, which is the main premise of the movie: one night at a rave, Steve and Matt stumble upon a mysterious tunnel in an adjacent valley. Needing a light and a camera, they beckon for Andrew, who obliges and follows them under ground. Inside, something large and crystal glows and seems to internally surge with life. All three boys reach out their hands to touch it and the camera goes on the fritz and blinks black. Sometime later, they are performing the “ball test,” in which each youth is pegged with a baseball in an attempt to sustain the injury and see if he can stop the ball’s trajectory. In the background, there is chatter about a new camera and losing the old one underground.
So, Chronicle is a documentary-style narrative in which the footage is never found or processed. I suppose the intent here is to emphasize the notion that we’re all voyeurs and experience many things through uploaded video, etc., but the narrative often gets wrapped up in its own gimmick, and, at times, there is no logical camera present – this is a particular issue during the rather impressive and visually entertaining showdown at the end of the film. Here, the film utilizes chopper cameras and security cameras within buildings, but then there are moments when we’re expected to believe that someone’s iPhone is capturing a crystal clear close up of two people flying and fighting a hundred yards away. This is a stretch, as are the two hand-held cameras randomly floating six-hundred feet in the air around our two combatants. Their origin is unknown as is their purpose in the rumble.
Aside from some of the visual sticking points, Chronicle is rather entertaining. The action scenes are impressive as is the overall story. It could have very well become a superhero origin story ready to set up a gaggle of sequels, but this feels far from the intent. The power-granting crystal is covered by a cave in, and there’s no exposited way for the boys to pass their power along, so another installment would be a stretch. Really, it’s a story of adolescent loneliness, struggle, and friendship. The performances are genuine and the narrative knowingly creates flawed characters. Andrew is socially awkward but is, for the first part of the film, well intentioned; Steve is a good guy who lets his ego control one too many of his actions, and Matt has a heart, but is an arrogant hypocrite. The plus is that he knows he’s full of shit, so the audience can’t hate him too much; he’s growing up, and eventually, he’ll realize that quoting Jung, Schopenhauer, and alluding to Plato’s “Allegory of the Cave” are merely sound bites masquerading as knowledge.
