In the 80’s, Katsuhiro Otomo and Izo Hashimoto co-wrote a manga called Akira. Otomo adapted the incredibly popular story to film. Akira is the story of a gang of teenagers caught between their friend’s transformation into a god and the government forces who try to stop him. The film is a mediation on adolescence and growth and the tremendous danger inherent to ignoring a teenager. Akira’s kinetic action, ideas, and depictions of the homosocial dynamics of male friends captured the imagination of American audiences and the film has since become one of the most popular films from Japan to be released in America.
Naturally, since 2002, Warner Brothers has been threatening to ruin the film by remaking it for American audiences, replacing the Asian characters with White actors, going so far as to agitate the gag-reflexes of a generation by offering the lead male role to Garret Hedlund. Thankfully (mercifully), they reconsidered. In 2011 production was shut down for the fourth (and hopefully final) time.
That same year the internet began lighting up with footage from a small film with no previous buzz. 20th Century Fox was advertising a project they called Chronicle – which proved an ostensible remake of Akira with a cast of unknowns and a first-time writer/director combo. Although it abandoned Tokyo for Seattle, Chronicle followed a the conflicts of a teenager with mysterious and god-like powers who lacked the morality necessary to control those powers.
Friends, let me tell you, they did it right.
It is hard to be a teenager. I know, I was one once and now I work with 100 of them each day. They are a roiling mass of everything unsettled in humanity. The body changes its dimensions, shape, and size. The skin erupts. Overnight, boys and girls gain abilities and status they formerly lacked. For many, these changes come too fast with no time to adjust. They’re far too large for themselves, equipped with strange dimensions they have yet to discover or fully plumb. They emit strange smells and feel unknowable compulsions to hurt themselves and one another. Childhood, which is never stable enough or safe enough, ends. The confusion and terror of adolescence never does.
In that sense, puberty is makes one an x-man/woman and adulthood is its secondary mutation. As such, it is the trembling vigil of a parent, coach, teacher, minister, etc. etc. etc. to watch children grow and wonder what they will become. Is this one a hero? Or are they a villain? I suppose that every adult is one or the other in every moment of the day, depending on circumstance and affection. Chronicle assumes the translatable potency of this metaphor and extends it to the big screen with devastating simplicity and incredible effect. Every person associated with the production of this film should be given whatever boost they need to become a big star. This is a first big play for all the players (Josh Trank (director), Max Landis (writer), Alex Russel (hero), Dane DeHaan (villain), and Michael B. Jordan (a former child actor who shines here, having lost none of his charm as a grown up actor).
The premise of the film is the fulfillment of every teenage boy’s fantasy. 3 boys leave a party and, in an unexplained process whose follow-up implies greater narrative complexity, gain the power of telepathy. The film’s first and second thirds show the development of their friendship as they bond over their shared experience. They prank each other and their friends – manipulating legos, teddy bears, and footballs with their new powers. Over the course of the film they develop their telepathy from manipulating legos to throwing cars at each other.
One of the boys – Stephen (Jordan) – is a popular athlete, poised to win the presidency of their student body. The second – Matt (Russel) – is a good-natured, dope-smoking philosopher. The third – Andrew (DeHaan) – is a bad seed. Initially, Stephen and Matt view Andrew with contempt. He’s weird and sullen. Bullies pick on him. However, their contempt turns to affection and then concern as they legitimately befriend him. Andrew comes from a troubled home – his father drinks and worries about money while his dying mother, when lucid, shines rays of affection on him. Caught in the riptide of these two influences, Andrew plays the perfect teenager. He responds directly to the strongest stimulus he experiences. Desire, anger, friendship – he is captivated by whatever is in front of him. This includes a series of beautiful sequences that highlight the boys’ growing power and budding friendship. However, the instability of Andrew’s home life and his own anxiety overburdens his fragile ego, one bad night topples the narrative the film has constructed and in a heart-aching sequence he becomes a villain. As Andrew spirals inward, his friends must find a way to save him or to stop him. I won’t spoil the film’s climax (its spectacular) except to say that the film ends with the birth of a hero and the promise of a sequel and then you realize then that you have seen an origin story that is not an origin story. The film’s larger direction is significant. Artistically, it speaks to something beyond effects and explosions and incredible action staging. If the 00’s were the decade of the Big Tentpole Superhero Film then Chronicle is their apotheosis and, perhaps, pinnacle.
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