Chronicle is a confident feature film debut from 26-year-old American Director Josh Trank.  Trank developed the story behind this teen fantasy with script writer Max Landis, also 26.  While the film is fresh, fun and will be a big hit with the under 30 market, the omnipresent video camera point of view is so strained and annoying that you begin to wonder whether the film wouldn’t have been better off without it.

One night after a party, three high school students, withdrawn Andrew (Dane DeHaan), his extravert cousin Matt (Alex Russell) and popular athlete Steve (Michael B Jordan) go into a cave and come out changed men with a bond that unites them.  When they return to the spot, it’s closed in and a military guard shoos them away. All these events are captured on Andrew’s HD camera, and, for most of the film we see through Andrew’s lens.  Andrew’s compulsive attachment to his camera behaviour, which results in him being bullied at school, might be a sign of insecurity and for cause.  Andrew’s mother is dying and his unhappy father, invalided out of the fire department, beats him.  

Shortly after the incident in the cave, the friends discover they have superhuman powers, notably that they can levitate objects and themselves.

The scenes in which they play football in the clouds is truly magical.  But disaster strikes when the friends start to argue about the use of their powers. A reaction perhaps to his previous sense of impotence, Andrew has gone out-of-control.  Will Matt be strong enough to save the city and save Andrew from himself?

The finale is a tour de force special effects but three quarters of the way through the film, it’s apparent that however telekinetically Andrew is operating his camera, it cannot possibly be capturing the images we see. The distracting camera aside, Chronicle can be seen as an allegorical tale about a weak, social misfit who, when he discovers he has power over others, abuses it.  Not to put too fine a point on it, but Adolf Hitler comes to mind. Andrew’s home life is similar to Hitler’s, and Hitler was also visually creative. When he was rejected from art school, he lived on the streets trying to sell his art much like Andrew roves the streets with his camera – the only thing connecting him with the real world.  

Trank was brave to create a lead character that is the villain, or, charitably, the tragic anti-hero. But Matt and Steve are underdeveloped characters, and the film suffers for it. In their early-to-mid-twenties, they just scrape by as high school students.  Nonetheless, anyone who sees Chronicle will be looking forward to Trank’s next film.