CLOVERFIELD (2008)
15 years later, It Remains A Groundbreaking,
Horrific Found Footage Story Of Love
When it comes to big screen romance, it seems that there are too many movies to count, too many to recall, because just about everything has been done. Imagine a particular scenario – chances are it's served as the heartbeat of a cinematic love story. It's rare that a subgenre of moviemaking can do something inventive and never before seen, so when those moments take shape before an audience, it's something special. It's like catching a glimpse of a unicorn in a quiet autumn wood.
Or like seeing a kaiju, smashing its way across a city landscape, threatening the lives of millions.
And the Godzilla-sized city-wide destruction of NYC rumbles at the heart of Matt Reeves' 2008 found footage skyscraper-sized creature feature CLOVERFIELD, which celebrates its 15th anniversary this year, unleashed this month as a limited edition 4K UHD steel book release with additional special features. That the film remains so revered has little to do with the obvious allure of found footage movies. By 2008, found footage movies were common fare in theaters. Upon its release, CLOVERFIELD had surpassed the expectations and limitations of hand-held films like THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT (1999) and others, no longer simply fueled by audience excitement and internet subterfuge but instead a production that played upon the anxieties made so popular in the days of September 11th. But more distinctively, CLOVERFIELD is an affecting piece of romantic filmmaking set against a backdrop of large scale monsters.
It had already started off as a good day, according to Robert Hawkins (Michael Stahl-David) in the quiet, pre-dawn moments of the movie, as CLOVERFIELD begins. The unassuming hero of the film has just spent the night with his longtime friend Beth McIntyre (Odette Annable), realizing his romantic love for her, and what could have been a traditionally awkward romcom in any other setting will soon turn into a high tension fight for survival when these two and their friends (played by Lizzy Caplan, Mike Vogel, TJ Miller, and Jessica Lucas) navigate the streets of NYC as an inexplicable, stories-tall creature cuts a swath across the urban landscape. Their movements will capture the horror of that night on video, while recording over a day of sun-filled fun momentarily captured on the Coney Island boardwalk, the best and worst of times.
What is at first remarkable about CLOVERFIELD is the filmmakers' bravery in transforming what could have been an otherwise forgettable found footage picture into a reflection of the anxieties that still resonated with audiences less than a decade after the tragedy of September 11th. When the nation came under attack that day, the media captured its immediate gravity, delivering to the world a moving, personal document at Ground Zero, the likes of which hadn't been annually broadcast again and again, recreating the terrifying spectacle that transformed the nation then and haunts it today. CLOVERFIELD asks its audience to revisit the very dread that it had experienced on the day of the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center, both reminding the audience through video that many wouldn't survive that day, but enforcing the fact that survival was possible.
In this way, Reeves and company transformed the found footage format into an experiential form of moviemaking that had largely gone untapped before then, transporting the audience to the televised terror that they saw in September of 2001. On that day, the horror of the moment was captured by amateur filmmakers on cameras who perhaps didn't comprehend at that time they were recording a moment in terrifying history. In science fiction fashion–in a flourish that could only be captured on the big screen in a manipulative manner–the found footage of CLOVERFIELD would do the same.
But sometimes lost in the sound of collapsing buildings and the launch of military rockets is the heart of the film. It's a heart that beats from start to finish for the love of Rob and Beth. The two had already consummated their love for one another before the film could catch up to them, but fate would make it difficult for them to remain together. Beth was already settled in NYC. Business would soon whisk Rob away to Japan. Moments before the skyscraper-sized creature would begin its assault on the Big Apple, Rob has already withdrawn into his saké, resigned to drown his down-spirited spirits in Japanese spirits. It's his brother Jason (Matt Vogel) who tries to convince him to chase her–unaware that the two will soon be running for their lives. "You have to go after her," Jason tells Rob, who can almost not be convinced that he would ever know love with someone like Beth.
"It's about moments," Jason tells him. "Learn to say 'forget the world' and hang onto the people that you care about the most." And in so doing, Jason–who doesn't make it to the end of the film with the others–ensures that Rob’s love for Beth endures. And those moments in the film are varied. The terror of the creature attacks are unexpectedly intruded upon by recorded reminders of that Coney Island day—now more precious than before—cast aside the sometimes darkened, treacherous excursions of NYC subway tunnels and the frighteningly late-night streetlights. But what the viewer should never lose sight of is the fact that the film is buoyed by the love story that manages to keep two young people together. CLOVERFIELD frequently feels like a Gamera-sized production given new life as a found footage movie when it is ultimately a romantic tale of two tragically displaced lovers caught in the middle of an inexplicable monster's city-wide trek. Broken hearts threaten to keep these two lovers apart on this night. Worse yet, the destruction of the city beneath the feet of the creature threatens to keep them apart forever.
"They're going to want to know," Hud (TJ Miller) says to no one in particular as he continues to record the devastation of the film while the NYC world seems to collapse around him and his friends. The rest of the world is going to want to know how everything transpires, he promises. What no one knows–in the movie then or the real world now – is how poignant CLOVERFIELD would remain more than a decade later. Whether at Coney Island on a ferris wheel or running for your life through the streets of New York City, it turns out that it was a good day after all, the portrait of a picture that was as much a large scale monster movie as it was a love story.
Like the creature feature that seemed to change the way found footage films operated, CLOVERFIELD left an indelible footprint at the intersection where horror and romantic movies meet. As the rubble fell and this couple finally proclaimed their love to one another aloud in the penultimate moments of the film – and those words were some of the last words the audience heard in what was otherwise billed as a multi-stories tall creature feature – perhaps neither the filmmakers nor the characters themselves understood what a great film CLOVERFIELD would be …
… Or of what a good day it would be.
