Cloverfield
Written by Drew Goddard
Directed by Matt Reeves
Paramount Pictures
2008
Rating:


Variety dismissed the monster movie "The Thing From Another World" for its "fail[ure] to communicate any real terror as the 'Thing' makes its appearance and its power potential to destroy the world is revealed" upon its release in 1951. In 1968, the trade publication questioned the "integrity and social responsibility" of George A. Romero's "Night of the Living Dead" while The New York Times' Vincent Canby called it "junk." Roger Ebert maligned Tobe Hooper's 1974 "The Texas Chain Saw Massacre" in a two-star review for being "without any apparent purpose, unless the creation of disgust and fright is a purpose."

"Cloverfield" has been similarly condemned by mainstream film critics as "a relentless, I-thought-my-eyeballs-were-bleeding exercise in visual disorientation" (the Washington Post), "badly constructed, humorless and emotionally sadistic" (the usually sharp Stephanie Zacharek of Salon.com) and featuring characters that "inspire yawns and contempt" (The New York Times' Manohla Dargis). In an otherwise positive, three-star review, the Boston Globe's Ty Burr says the film "captures the chronic self-absorption of the Facebook generation with breathless, cleverly recycled media savvy, and then it stomps that self-absorption to death" and calls the killing of this generation by a rampaging monster "entertainment." Entertainment Weekly critic Lisa Schwarzbaum calls the characters "twenty-something nincompoops" on her way to giving the movie a "B+" rating. In the Village Voice, Nathan Lee applauds the monster's decision to "brutalize the society that flourished from [9/11's] ruin like some tacky, tenacious, condo-dwelling fungus."

The generational slurs of Burr, Schwarzbaum and Lee seem to say as much about the remarkable critical misinterpretation of "Cloverfield" as anything else. Critics have also focused their disapproval on the 9/11 imagery (imagery that didn't seem to raise that much ire with "War of the Worlds") and the supposedly derivative appropriation of "The Blair Witch Project's" subjective camerawork (are all films that use deep focus and low-angle shots supposed to be reviled for being "derivative" of "Citizen Kane"?). But it's an inability to connect with "the Facebook generation" (or "the MySpace generation" or "Gen-YouTube" as it has elsewhere been disparaged) depicted in the film that has largely been the source of "Cloverfield's" most callow eye-rolling.

As a "mere" monster movie, "Cloverfield" was already doomed to the genre ghetto by most critics; as an Internet phenomenon, it was even more ready for a takedown. Most surprisingly, it's "Cloverfield's" apparently audacious decision to depict an age group's fears, hopes and, ultimately, its potential that has made the film worthy of so much scorn.

Such a generational gap may have been responsible for the equally superficial disregard for "The Thing from Another World," "Night of the Living Dead" and "The Texas Chain Saw Massacre" – not incidentally three films that used horror and science fiction for allegorical purposes about real modern sources of terror – and "Cloverfield" seems likely to join their ranks as a horror classic.

"Cloverfield" opens with a brief moment of tenderness. In late April, Rob (Michael Stahl-David) uses his new digital camera to film his morning in bed with Beth (Odette Yustman) after having finally slept his longtime crush. Rob and Beth make plans to spend the day at Coney Island together, but then the video suddenly shifts to almost a month later as Rob's brother Jason (Mike Vogel) and Jason's girlfriend Lily (Jessica Lucas) talk about Rob's going away party. Rob is about to move to Japan for work and Lily wants Jason to make a video of the party. Unfortunately, Jason hasn't removed the tape of Rob and Beth's day together and their Coney Island sojourn is recorded over.

Jason passes off filmmaking duties to Rob's best friend Hud (T.J. Miller), an amiable dude prone, like many friends, to saying inappropriate things. Hud's filming of the party and the guest's testimonials is often sidetracked by Hud's romantic pursuit of Marlena (Lizzy Kaplan), who Hud has a crush on but who doesn't even know who Hud is.

The party is captured with the kind of realistic banality that is the hallmark of the "mumblecore" movies of Andrew Bujalski ("Funny Ha Ha," "Mutual Appreciation"), Joe Swanberg ("Hannah Takes the Stairs") and the Duplass Brothers ("The Puffy Chair"). Again, "Cloverfield" has been slammed because its characters don't speak in Woody Allen witticisms, but the party – and, more importantly, these people – feel genuine. They don't talk about Ingmar Bergman or the Holocaust; they drink, listen to Spoon and gossip.

That gossip focuses on Rob and Beth when Beth arrives with another man and Hud films Rob having an argument with her in the hallway. Rob and Beth's secret hook-up a month ago is revealed to the friends, as is Rob's decision not to pursue Beth because of his move to Japan. Beth leaves angrily and Rob, hurt by his inability to declare his love, retreats to the fire escape to sulk.

Suddenly, disaster strikes. An apparent earthquake rocks New York City. Flaming objects fly through the sky, crashing into buildings. And the head of the Statue of Liberty rolls through the streets.

Rob's party evacuates into the streets in an effort to find safety, only to encounter...some thing, something monstrous, smashing through the city. Most of the friends make it into a convenience store, but Marlena is unlucky enough to be caught outside when it passes. When the friends find her later, Marlena, in shock, reports, "It's eating people!" The group tries to evacuate over the Brooklyn Bridge, but a panicked call from Beth to Rob makes the friends decide to go back to save her, even though the rescue mission seems futile.

Hud continues filming all the while to document the monster's carnage. The decision is reasonably made. As a member of "Gen-YouTube," Hud comes with an intrinsic desire to video and record. Keeping a camera between him and the disaster, like his facetiousness, also has a distancing effect that prevents him being forced to fully engage with what's happening.

Ironically, the opposite is true of the connection the film makes with the audience by using Hud's "found footage." The conceit, no mere gimmick, provides an intimacy and empathy Steven Spielberg's "War of the Worlds" attempted with its "everyman" perspective but failed at because of the glossy camerawork and the inept use of the decidedly not average Hollywood star Tom Cruise as the protagonist. Using relatively unknown actors and first-person camera work makes the peril more genuine than in any monster movie ever before. Hud's footage gives the frequent action set pieces (the story has the loud-quiet-loud structure of a Pixies or Nirvana song for those looking for more generational signifiers) a you-are-there intensity absent from everything from the original "Godzilla" to Spielberg's "War."

From a filmmaking perspective, it's also awe-inspiring. Director Matt Reeves (co-creator of "Felicity" with producer J.J. Abrams), screenwriter Drew Goddard (the wunderkind behind many great episodes of "Buffy the Vampire Slayer," "Angel" and Abrams' "Alias" and "Lost") cinematographer Michael Bonvillain ("Felicty," "Alias" and "Lost"), editor Kevin Stitt ("X-Men"), production designer Martin Whist ("Smokin' Aces") and art director Doug J. Meerdink (fittingly of "War of the Worlds") have joined forces to turn a monster movie into an improbable work of veritι. The destruction of New York City at the hands of an H.P. Lovecraft-ian horror is created with an immediate realism that's psychologically rattling.

"Cloverfield" is elevated to classic status because, like the best horror movies, it addresses current social anxieties. The attack on New York isn't a callous exploitation of 9/11 terror; it's an allegorical examination of the fears imbedded in a generation's psyche since 2001. Rob and his friends' expedition through the chaos is an attempt to refuse hopelessness.

Rob is a symbol of a generation derided for being apathetic, disengaged from the world and "in clover," as it were, who, against the expectations of his elders, rises to the occasion to save someone he loves. "Cloverfield" captures the video zeitgeist of this generation, but it also portrays its heart.

Posted Saturday, January 19, 2008

Link to this review:
http://filmzeus.pressbin.com/film/cloverfield