Super 8 | Little White Lies

Super 8

04 Aug 2011 / Released: 05 Aug 2011

Words by Matt Glasby

Directed by JJ Abrams

Starring Elle Fanning, Joel Courtney, and Kyle Chandler

Two young women sitting at a cluttered table, one with a pensive expression.
Two young women sitting at a cluttered table, one with a pensive expression.
5

Anticipation.

Hollywood royalty and his heir apparent join forces.

5

Enjoyment.

The best blockbuster of its kind since the Spielberg era.

4

In Retrospect.

Wears off like a warm childhood memory.

JJ Abrams deliv­ers big in this enthralling nos­tal­gia trip to small-town USA cir­ca the 1970s.

The rea­son Steven Spiel­berg and Stephen King are two of the most beloved – and rich­est – sto­ry­tellers of the mod­ern age is because they tap into the hopes and fears of child­hoods past. It’s a can­ny strat­e­gy. By speak­ing to the adults in chil­dren, and vice-ver­sa, they win the hearts of the widest pos­si­ble audi­ence for the longest pos­si­ble time. Nos­tal­gia nev­er dates. It’s the gift that keeps on giving.

Like a long-lost Spiel­berg movie glimpsed through a post-mod­ern fil­ter, Super 8, writ­ten and direct­ed by Lost and Star Trek ace JJ Abrams (with Spiel­berg pro­duc­ing), is set in small-town 70s Amer­i­ca, and makes you feel woozy for your own Hol­ly­wood­ised youth.

The BMX bikes and unat­tain­able girls; the bad hair­styles and worse shirts; the sparkler-lit adven­tures with a mis­matched clan of friends (see The Goonies and It). It’s a time when, to bor­row Wim Wen­ders’ phrase, Amer­i­ca was colonis­ing our uncon­scious; when the movie came ahead of the event or, at least, before we knew what we were being sold.

If two of the biggest film­mak­ers in the world can release the block­buster of the year with­out spoil­ers, we’re damned if we’re going to give the game away, so let’s just say this: Super 8 fol­lows Joel Courtney’s clan as they shoot a zom­bie movie – and some­thing more besides – on the epony­mous camera.

Framed with a cinephile’s obses­sive eye, this is a film about falling in love with film. Often we watch Court­ney and co shoot­ing against real-life’ back­drops that could only exist in a film, all in ser­vice of pro­duc­tion val­ues’, as a mini Orson Welles played by Riley Grif­fiths is fond of remind­ing us. Mean­while, George A Romero and make-up leg­end Dick Smith get fond men­tions, while Court­ney has a Star Wars TIE fight­er swing­ing from his bed­room ceiling.

But this is far from emp­ty homage; Abram’s script shows real heart and guts through­out. Absent moth­ers wreak emo­tion­al dev­as­ta­tion far worse than any sci-fi threat (“She used to look at me this way… real­ly look,” says Court­ney as home-filmed footage of his mum sad­ly unspools before us, and I knew I existed.”).

Mean­while the kids bick­er and bitch, swear­ing like troop­ers and act­ing like they don’t know they’re in a movie – pret­ty rare in these stage-schooled days. There are also some great jokes nod­ding to the as-yet-unlived 1980s with­out break­ing the fourth wall, a trick Back to the Future man­aged so well.

Like King and Spiel­berg before him, Abrams recog­nis­es the shad­ows between the fair­ground rides – that the peo­ple who are sup­posed to save us often can’t or won’t; that the dis­ap­point­ments we once felt so keen­ly may one day sub­merge our lives by stealth. It’s a thrilling, trans­port­ing expe­ri­ence that brings to mind a quote from King and Rob Reiner’s Stand By Me: I nev­er had any friends lat­er on like the ones I had when I was 12,” recalls Richard Drey­fuss, look­ing back across his life.“Jesus, did any­one?” The same could be said of films like this.

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