Super 8

I went into the cinema to see Super 8 knowing only one thing about it – it was written and directed by JJ Abrams, of Lost renown. That was quite literally the extent of my knowledge about the film’s particularities, but with it came certain expectations: the film was likely to have a monster or some other sci-fi element, and was bound to be well-written and intelligent. It was all of those things, but so much more – it may be the live-action film I’ve enjoyed most this year.

Before the credits began to roll, I knew that Spielberg had to be involved in this film in some way – everything from script to shot composition was an homage to him. Indeed, there he was, listed as producer, but while I suspect he had no more direct influence on the film than money and publicity, his shadow was everywhere. The head of his shadow was in the setting, nostalgic for the very end of the 70s. The hands were the child protagonists, and the sci-fi themes entering into their lives. The chest, where the heart is, were the broken homes, the well-realised but tragic lives that make us really care about these characters – and I did, much more than in any Hollywood film I remember in years.

A group of five friends, aged around 14, are making a zombie film together for a super 8 competition. They are simple but well-drawn archetypes: the everyman kid, son of the sheriff, who recently suffered the loss of his mother. His bossy best friend, confident and hardworking but somewhat cajoling and insecure because of his weight. The quirky blond boy with braces and a fixation with explosives. The cowardly intellectual one. And the rather thick guy who nonetheless plays the leading man in the little films. Our everyman, Joe, is elated when he discovers his filmmaker friend has persuaded their pretty classmate Alice to be in the film. During shooting, though, they are witnesses to a terrible train crash, lucky to escape with their lives. When the army intervenes, they realise something very serious is going on, and over the days to follow, things only get stranger – dogs are running away, people are going missing, and electrical items are vanishing.

There are several clichés it’s easy to see coming from miles away: the moment the idea of minds being read by contact comes in, you know the pure innocence of a child is going to save lives. The army as always stands for misguided authoritative force, containing and experimenting upon something that ought to be helped. Even Spielberg might have paused before approving the orchestral swell that accompanied the final scenes. And it seems a pity that the sci-fi plot means that only the story of two fathers at war gets resolved: I wanted more of the kids.

Because the kids were the centrepiece of this film, and the reason it works so well. They are right out of Spielberg, and all the better for it, because kids aren’t written that way any more. At first I thought the 1979 setting was just so that things like mass media and mobile phone cameras wouldn’t get in the way of the small-town feel Abrams wanted – indeed, a cultural isthmus that bears some thinking about – but in fact it was about presenting the time period as a great time to be a kid. They managed to get a cast that with the right hair looked absolutely like 70s kids, especially the blonde one and Dakota Fanning’s pretty little sister. I read that the boy playing Joe will be Huck Finn in an upcoming film. He’ll be just right.

These 70s kids were so perfectly of their time, so limited in their horizons compared with today’s children, so devoted to their hobbies and activities, and so sweet in their relationships (not just romantic ones) that I smile to think of it, even now. That’s what makes the film work so well. And the final film they made is well worth the wait.