Sometimes a Good Notion

Abrams knows pop-culture and has been providing sleek entertainments for over a   decade.   With each (Star Trek, Alias, Lost) Abrams has supplied us with stories filled with cool and just enough depth to keep us interested.  He is not however an innovator. His most successful works on screen thus far have been retreads of old stories and old themes we’ve seen before but Abrams manages to infuse each with so much youthful imagination that they are unexpectedly fun.

Super 8 falls squarely into this description.   The story is straight out of Spielberg’s canon.  At the crux of it is young Joe Lamb (Joel Courtney) who is coping with the death of his mother and a father (Kyle Chandler) who doesn’t quite understand him.  He finds solace in a group of rambunctiously nerdy friends who are in the middle of filming an 8mm Zombie flick for a local competition.  Mostly through happenstance the friends find themselves embroiled in a conspiracy to cover up the existence of a man-eating alien and must confront the being itself.   Through all of the action, explosions, mayhem, and clever escapes,  Abrams’ camera never loses sight of Joe who discovers that life is full of pain and loss and though even as it is important to remember he must also not forget to live on.  The screenplay is classically structured with beautifully executed act breaks and an elegant resolution. Abrams is not subtle in telling his story but manages to get such fine performances that one can’t help but forget that you knew exactly what was coming.

There are some other players that also deserve some mention.  Production Designer Martin Whist has built a terrifically complete 1979.  There is an uncanny attention to detail unusual for a movie where you’re going to blow the set up.  Whist and Abrams remember this period fondly and the art department here contributes greatly to the general feeling of nostalgia the film is desperately trying to create.  From the wall paper to the carpeting, the design is understated and cues our memories to the period filling the fantasy with images that are very real to us.

It would also be remiss if casting directors April Webster and Alyssa Weisberg were not mentioned.   These ladies, long time collaborators of Abrams, have assembled a cast of young players that is worth noting.  The chemistry between these kids (Joel Courtney, Ryan Lee, Riley Griffiths, & Gabriel Basso) is by far the most entertaining part of the movie.  They play hysterically off each other better than the most seasoned professionals.

In the process of watching these kids the audience makes a few discoveries, the most promising of which is a young Elle Fanning.  Fanning plays Alice, the white trash rebel of this Ohio steel town and the subject of all of the boy’s lust.   Alice’s father (Ron Eldard) was involved in Joe’s mother’s death at the local factory.  It makes for Joe and Alice to have an unusual emotional bond from the moment they first meet.   Fanning plays the character with surprising maturity and intelligence. There is a scene early on in the film where the boys are getting ready to shoot one of the scenes in their Zombie movie.  They have invited Alice to play the female lead but expectations about her performance are low.  The director yells “Action” and form the moment Alice opens her mouth the boys are entranced. Their jaws drop, tears rush to their eyes.  The scene plays well; it’s funny, very funny because that expression of awe and amazement at watching someone who possesses a rare talent is what the audience feels as we watch Fanning on screen.

The comparisons to Spielberg will be plentiful in the press, as they should be.  Spielberg produced Super 8 and his work inspired it. Seeing the Amblin logo at the beginning of the film was as exciting for me as the movie itself. This logo has been absent from the theaters for the majority of the last 2 decades.  I grew up on Amblin Films (E.T., The Goonies, Back to the Future, Gremlins) and Abrams, from the very first frames of Super 8 is trying to create a feeling of nostalgia not only for a period but for a type of storytelling that Spielberg popularized during that period.  In this, Abrams is entirely successful and creates a product that not only reminded me of the movies I love, but also of why I love the movies.