Chronic feels a bit like those with zero interest in cinema imagine a film presented at a film festival to be: dour, slow, overlong, provocative, abrasive, featuring badly lit naked bodies and bodily fluids, and with an eager willingness to shock. And yes, all of these staples of a certain kind of arthouse cinema feature, which made for a rude experience for many wary film critics on an early morning press screening near the end of the festival. But Chronic is so much more than that.
In Chronic, David is a palliative care nurse whose most recent patient is about to die as the film opens. We know nothing about him, and the film throws a few red herrings about his personality and his past, as we see him attend his latest patient's funeral, or confide to a stranger in a bar that his wife died recently, only for the audience to realise he is actually lying to a certain degree. There are no clues about his private life past or present, or any kind of life outside his occupation. In fact, we see him actively seek more night shifts and swapping some with a colleague, which hint at a lack of any outside activity in his life.
