Cloverfield

Starring: Michael Stahl-David, Mike Vogel, Lizzy Caplan, Jessica Lucas, Odette Yustman, T.J. Miller

Written by: Drew Goddard

Directed by: Matt Reeves

Distributor: Paramount Pictures

Rated: PG-13

Cloverfield may be one-half shrewd marketing strategy, but thankfully the other half is some damn fine moviemaking — a masterfully intense (if ultimately forgettable) monster movie that exploits its stylistic gimmick to the fullest. You’ve seen the ads, you’ve probably heard the gossip. Something is tearing apart Manhattan, but what the hell is it? Rumors ranged from Cloverfield being the new Godzilla movie in disguise to its monster being the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man. The movie offers us few answers as to the monster’s origins, but this is appropriate, considering Cloverfield’s immersive first-person perspective.


The video we see (presented to us at the beginning of the film as “Property of the U.S. Defense Department”) begins as a farewell celebration for Rob, a newly promoted corporate vice president soon to leave for Tokyo. His friend Hud lugs around a video camera, recording guests’ testimonials and embracing his newfound role as documentarian— a role to which he seems inclined, as he artfully captures enough back story to flesh out succinct characterizations for the audience. The camera keeps rolling as something rocks the city, buildings start to crumble, the ground shakes, things explode and the military comes in — typical monster movie fare, given considerable vitality by the filmmaker’s technique.


From the first second of the monster’s appearance, when the power stutters out and a fireball erupts in the distance, Cloverfield deals in some potent imagery. The term “post 9/11 film” has been bandied about for practically every action movie set in New York since 2001, but it’s fitting for Cloverfield, which features a scene early on in which a street full of stunned onlookers wander through floating ash and the dust of a demolished building, the Statue of Liberty’s decapitated head lying next to them. The film traffics in panic and hysteria through a “you-are-there” aesthetic.


But Cloverfield’s questionable psychology and arguably cheap tactics are what makes it fascinating. The intensity of these images largely derives from the fact that they are no longer purely escapist or sensationalistic; the film collapses the gap between fantasy and devastating reality. The technique is not original, but its application to such a far-fetched story unsettles the foundations of genre filmmaking. This is a monster movie, so we want to see explosions and the panic on people’s faces. But the first person, handheld video camera perspective and the fact that we’ve seen this imagery before (usually paired with the term “Shock and Awe”) removes Cloverfield’s action from its safe distance, souring the satisfaction we may take from its illusions.


So what does the film say about our panicked post-9/11 society? Nothing — this is not a social commentary and it may even be morally questionable. But as an exercise in genre manipulation and aesthetic strategy, it’s close to brilliant.VS