High school can be tough enough for a skinny kid who sticks to himself and doesn't have a lot of friends. A kid like that will likely get picked on mercilessly, but he won't say anything to his family or school authorities because the idea of those two universes coming together if far worse than having some bullies knock your books out of your hands. As much as the fantastic new film from first-time director Joshua Trank (whose biggest credit to date was editing BIG FAN) and writer Max Landis (son of John) is about three kids who stumble upon a mysterious object in a cave that gives them extraordinary powers, CHRONICLE is really about Andrew Detmer (played by the gifted young actor Dane DeHaan), an outcast who is suddenly given the ability to defend himself and seek vengeance upon his tormentors.
I first noticed DeHaan when he appeared as the self-destructive gay high schooler on HBO's great series "In Treatment" and more recently on a couple episodes of the most recent season of "True Blood." He's set to appear later this year in John Hillcoat's WETTEST COUNTY opposite some pretty heavy-hitting actors like Tom Hardy, Gary Oldman, Guy Pearce, Mia Wasikowska and Jessica Chastain. Through no fault of his own, DeHaan eerily resemble a young, THIS BOY'S LIFE-era Leonardo DiCaprio and seems to have the passion to match. In Chronicle, the world is piling on trouble after trouble. In addition to the bullying, Andrew's father (Michael Kelly) is a violent alcoholic and his mother (Bo Petersen) is dying painfully of cancer. The family is broke, so they can't even afford painkillers to ease his mother's suffering, giving Andrew an infinite number of reasons to get angry.
During a part that the three leads—including Michael B. Jordan ("Friday Night Lights") as Steve, one of the most popular kids in school, and Andrew's cousin Matt (Alex Russell)—find a hole in the ground in a field and decide to go down. I'm not spoiling anything by saying that they find something glowing and creepy that seems to be emitting energy that even disturbs the picture quality of the camera Andrew is also carrying with him. (Yes, the film begins as a found-footage exercise, but as the action ramps up, the filmmakers switch over to cell phone and security cameras to capture the impossible-to-believe images.)
There's a slight, unexplained jump in time after the glowing-rock episode, and now the boys realize that they have the ability to move small objects with their minds, often causing nose bleeds, but not always. And the more they practice using their gifts, the stronger they get and the heavier the objects they can lift get. One of the first things Andrew learns to lift is his camera, so now rather than have all of the footage be handheld, he's actually able to get some pretty cool elevated, drifting angles, which at the very least, keeps this from being a shaky-cam nightmare (a la CLOVERFIELD). At first the boys use their ability to move things to play pranks on other people, and those scenes are pretty great. But when Andrew causes an aggressive driver to veer off the road, nearly killing the man, we get our first sense of what he's capable of. And then they teach themselves to fly, and we forget the bad stuff for a while.
I can't think of a film in recent memory that so perfectly captured what it would be like to fly under your own power; their genuine glee at flying in and out of the clouds is infectious. Jordan is a charismatic actor who exudes charm and personality, exactly the kind of all-around likable guy that would run for and win class president. And while he loves his powers, he doesn't see the bigger ramifications about having them. Russell's character is the vocal morality of the group; he wants to establish rules about when and how the powers can be used (Rule 1: don't use it on living objects). He also feels overwhelmingly guilty at times for not being there for his cousin during the hard times in his life, and he's using this opportunity to bring them closer together. These are nicely drawn characters, all of whom we grow to care about, which makes the final third of the film so magnificently devastating.
The final act of CHRONICLE is one long action sequence shot in an unusual way that makes it feel like we're seeing these events in the real world (the film is set in Seattle), and it's the first chance we get to witness just how strong the kids have gotten and how skilled they've become at using their abilities in tandem. I especially like the all three leads are given the same power, but it's the weakest of the three that practices the most and has enough emotional instability to do things the other two would consider forbidden.
And with a running time that barely cracks 80 minutes, director Trank keeps things moving at an appropriate pace without forgetting that slowing things down to take a breath is necessary for an audience to contemplate what new developments have occurred, and more importantly to consider how we would act in the same situation. CHRONICLE is one big mass of entertainment that tells the "young people with powers" story in such a different way that it ups the genre significantly and unforgettably. This should be your priority for the weekend.
