When 'Chronicle' was released at the beginning of 2012 it
was met with an enthusiastic reception, both critically and at the
Box-Office. It put Director Josh Trank
on the map (leading to him getting the 'Fantastic Four' reboot gig), and
established lead actors Dane DeHaan and Michael B. Jordan as talents to
watch. It is, admittedly, well directed
and acted - the effects work as the boys develop their psychic powers is
impressive, and the camaraderie of teenage lads larking about with them is
believably portrayed. But it's a film
that I have some problems with, basically down to its portrayal of someone who
has been the victim of bullying and abuse.
This film touched a nerve with me, when it came to the scenes where
Andrew (DeHaan) is bullied and ostracised at High School - basically I had a
pretty sh*tty time at school with bullying, which panned out to being an almost
complete social pariah by the age of 15/16, when most kids are too old to push
someone or trip them up, or laugh at it.
There was one particular kid at school who behaved like a nasty, arrogant piece
of work - because his dad was a local TV sports presenter on one channel, and because he apparently played guitar, he
behaved like he was better than everyone else on the planet. He made my
life - and that of several of my friends - something of a misery. As we got older, and towards the end of high school, I mainly based myself in my small group of genuine friends so as to avoid people, but any
encounters with him mostly consisted of me being sneered and laughed at derisively.
In a lot of respects this film gets that experience right,
but it doesn't adequately capture a significant part of it - the anger and rage
that is felt by the bullying victim.
Sometimes this is turned inwards, sometimes this is directed at those
closest to them, but mostly this is stored up and simmers beneath the
surface. When it erupts, it can have tragic results - or it can be used to refocus and drive a person. In 'Chronicle' though, Andrew doesn't just
face bullying at school - he faces it in his neighbourhood, where he is picked on
by local thugs (it's suggested they have physically assaulted him, and even
mugged him, before the events of the film).
Worst of all, he is subjected to abuse at home at the hands of his
alcoholic father, who (it is strongly implied) beats him.
When, at the end, Andrew unleashes his powers against those who have
abused him, the good work that the film has done leading up to it in terms of
naturalistic performances and characterisation is arguably undermined.
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| 'Chronicle' authentically portrays the camaraderie of three teenage lads larking about. Only, with Psychic powers... |
Firstly, just because Andrew is bullied and abused at
home and school did not necessarily mean he would 'turn bad'. The film partly tries to justify this shift
through the device of his mother's slowly succumbing to cancer. When there's no money to buy her medication
(because his dad has spent it on Alcohol) Andrew turns to crime to get it, using
his powers to do so. Whilst this is
partly believable, I believe that it would take more than that to push someone
like Andrew to using their powers in 'bad' ways. In real life (speaking from experience),
surviving bullying is easier with the support of genuine friends - but before
he slides to 'evil' we see Andrew becoming isolated from his two best friends -
and, again, I'm not sure this is convincing.
The falling out stems from an embarrassment involving over-drinking and
vomiting at a party, and besides the fact it puts Andrew back at the bottom of
the social hierarchy amongst his peers, it never feels like a convincing reason for
him to kill Steve (Jordan). Apart from,
of course, to show how he is 'turning bad' in how he uses his powers. He falls out with his other friend, his
cousin Matt (Alex Russell), when he uses his powers to get back at one of the
bullies we see assaulting him earlier in the film. Matt confronts him and lectures him about how
they agreed not to use their powers on living things, but this brings me to my
second issue: Matt's reaction shows how the film doesn't really sympathise with
the experience of being bullied.
 |
| The film sort of justifies Andrew's descent in to 'villainy' due to the abuse and bullying, but then it bizarrely tells the audience we shouldn't sympathise with him. Eh?!? |
After we've seen all that Andrew has endured at the hands
of his peers at school, the local thugs, and his abusive father, the audience
is supposed to side with Matt when Andrew starts using his powers against
those who have bullied and abused him. Whilst DeHaan has the right look and
acting ability to pull off a troubled person, it feels like a cliché when he is
contrasted with Matt, who is the stereotypical square-jawed, tall dark and
handsome leading man. It is a lazy kind
of short-hand that the film uses with this approach to casting the actors,
which basically says "you are less likely to turn bad if you are stereotypically
handsome, and more likely to turn bad if you're not". It is a lazy way of making the audience get
behind Matt during the final act, as opposed to arguably where the audience's
sympathy should lie, with Andrew. It
cheapens what he goes through over the course of the film, and the way in which
it contributes to where he ends up in the final act.
If the film really wanted to show us how bullying and
abuse would have pushed Andrew in to using his powers in a 'bad' way it has
also failed in this respect - because, arguably, it doesn't go far enough. Again, demonstrating how the makers either
don't fully appreciate how bullying really feels or can make the victim feel,
there is a holding back when we finally begin to see Andrew striking back
against those who have made his life a misery.
Having felt the rage that being bullied creates, looking back to my
school days if I'd have had powers, like Andrew, I'm not sure I would have
killed the people bullying me, but I would have wanted to hurt them. And not only that, I would have wanted to humiliate them for all the times they'd laughed at
me and made me feel inadequate in front of the rest of the school. Pulling out teeth would have been a start,
but why do just do that, when he could have thrown them around, broken a limb
or two - then pulled their clothes off and left them naked and exposed in front
of their peer group? Again, when we see
him turn the tables on the local thugs and use his powers to mug them, putting
myself in his shoes I would have used the powers to afflict more psychological
terror before bringing physical harm on them - pay back for all the times
they'd intimidated and threatened me. I
can partly understand why the film makers held back at this point - budgetary
reasons, and no doubt not wanting to push the film's rating up too high and cut
off potential box office from a younger audience.
But what is totally unforgivable is that the one
character who is completely irredeemable, who totally deserved the full force
of Andrew's anger and to meet their death at his hands, is rescued by
Matt. In pure story-telling terms
Andrew's dad (Michael Kelly) fulfils the role of an antagonist who surely deserves to
be killed off. We see him completely
oblivious to the suffering of his wife as she slowly succumbs to cancer, due to
his alcoholism, as well as being oblivious to the misery his son is enduring at
school. Not only that he adds to this
misery by directing his rage towards Andrew - there is no moment of remorse or
contrition over this, his anger and Andrew is sustained throughout the entire
film. And to top it all, he blames
Andrew for not being there when his wife finally passes of her cancer,
unleashing a furious tirade at him - despite Andrew being the only person
trying to get his mothers' drugs and ease her pain. There is no reason from a story-telling
point-of-view for him to survive the film,and the moment when Matt saves Andrew's dad is completely
frustrating, serving little purpose than reinforcing the poorly set out
'good/bad' dynamic which is supposed to define the pair in the final act. Andrew would throw a man to his death,
therefore he is irredeemably bad, while Matt saves that man, so is clearly the
good guy who we must root for. Again, it
just cheapens what Andrew has been through, how he has by and large been the
victim throughout the film.
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| My biggest problem with the final 'battle' is that the audience are given more reasons to sympathise with Andrew, but are expected to accept Matt as the 'hero' - who happens to have stereotypical 'hero' looks, unlike Andrew... |
It is also a lazy way of setting up that Andrew must die
at the end. We're supposed to believe
that he is so consumed by his grief-stricken rage that there is no way back for
him - however, there are moments earlier in the film where Andrew has acted out
of anger but shown genuine remorse, so there is a precedent that suggests he
may have calmed down. Although Matt's
attempts to do this are seemingly futile, it would arguably have made sense to
try and remove him from the city to an area where his rage would have caused
less harm and less danger to by-standers.
However, that wouldn't have made for such a spectacle-filled final act,
would it?
On the one hand I get that 'Chronicle' isn't meant to be
a super-hero movie - it is framed more like a horror film, in certain
respects. And underneath the narrative
is a 'counter-point', if you like, to the origin story of, say, Spider-man:
like Andrew, Peter Parker is bullied at school and something of a social outcast, but he
has the loving upbringing and guidance of his Aunt May & Uncle Ben to
inspire him to use his powers for good.
This film highlights that, if he hadn't have had that, he'd have
probably turned in to a little a**hole after the spider bite. But aside from that, having been through
bullying myself (though thankfully not domestic abuse) I ultimately feel the
way the film handles it shows a real sympathy or understanding of the
experience. I think the biggest clincher
is that the film seems to suggest that if you're bullied and socially shunned by your peers at school, you're
more likely to turn 'bad'. As I said at
the beginning of the article, the experience of being bullied did not turn me
bad, or violent, but I chose to turn the hurt and anger in a different direction. I became interested in music, and found an
outlet for my feelings through playing the drums. And above
all it made me want to be a good person, not like the bullies - contributing to
making me work as a volunteer with elderly and disabled people, and campaigning
for development charities in my late Teens and early 20's.
As for the bully I spoke about, well things didn't turn
out so well for him after school. His
apparent talent for playing guitar never lead to a career, and he fell in to drug abuse
- dying of an overdose a couple of years ago. I don't know what drove him to that, perhaps
it was the same issues that made him a bully, perhaps he was so mean to people
to distract from those issues. If I'd
have known what they were, or how his life would end up, I don't think I would
have allowed myself to be bullied by him when I was at school. I probably would have just felt sorry for
him. But then, things might have been different if I'd have developed psychic powers at that age..!
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