#44: Chronicle

Gosh, I wonder what Josh Trank followed up this near masterpiece of a film with. 

This is a fantastic (ha), and pretty heartbreaking movie. The first time I saw it, being in a fairly depressed mindset, I was seriously shaken and it took me a week to watch another movie.

There is an interesting balance between the folly of youth and showing a sensible and sensitive side to young men.

It really should have been an anthology movie...I would say "Like Cloverfield," but haven't we seen how that works out? Not so great.

Sometimes, Sci-Fi just has to stand alone.

The hand-held camera aspect is pretty cool, and on rare occasion will the tables turn and have someone have a camera on Andrew, the lead character.

In this day and age, it takes a lot for me to feel sad about the fates of men, especially white men, but
this movie can be easily summed up as "What happens depressed people get superpowers and it doesn't fix your problems."



It's a miracle the lead character, played by Dane Dehaan of Valerian fame, didn't shoot up his school.

  He gets picked on, his father beats him, his only friend at first is his cousin and, eventually, the most popular guy in school, played by Michael B. Jordan, who would go to be in Trank's next ill-fated project.

There's a part smack in the middle of the movie where they're at a party and it's a dull slog for about four minutes because yay interpersonal relationships gone wrong. There is also a side story where the cousin is growing a relationship with a girl, but it feels inorganic and tacked on.

The highs and lows of this movie make it truly one of my favorites of the decade.