rating:
(out of
4 stars)Canada; 2007
Directed by Bruce McDonald; produced by Sarah Timmins; screenplay by Maureen Medved
Starring Ellen Page, Maxwell McCabe-Lokos, Ari Cohen, Jackie Brown, Julian Richings, Zie Souwand, Kate Todd
At least it is different! This must have been on the mind of many makers after they saw their final product named 'The Tracey Fragments'. Indeed, it is different, and I appreciate the effort, but not the film. It split screens, often cut into many pictures, for the entire duration of the film. As an idea it must have seemed interesting, both to represent a character and as a form of narrative, but the idea turns out to be unrewarding.
The first ten minutes or so I thought the idea kind of worked. Although sometimes hard to follow, I liked what I saw. But after the MTV-like opening titles for a fake film, playing in the head of Tracey Berkowitz (Ellen Page), I was tired of it. It tells a very shallow story, and tries to mask it with the presentation. Tracey is first seen with a shower curtain wrapped around her naked body, sitting in a bus. In another scene we see her searching for her little brother Sonny (Zie Souwand), who thinks he is a dog.
Both events are related, of course, but in a way I did not really care. Tracey is fifteen, an age where many youngsters have problems with themselves or other youngsters, and from her point of view we see the world, in fragments, as a mean place around her. She has a hard friendless time at school, her parents do not give a damn, and she is lonely. This cliché is dramatized with unlikely events, including the reason she is looking for her brother.
Except for the interesting idea and the failed result there is not much to say about 'The Tracey Fragments'. I like Ellen Page, but it is hard to talk about acting when it comes to these fragments. The same can be said about the technical aspects. The handheld camera works in the first ten minutes, but the technique grows tiresome after that, as does the idea, and therefore the film. You might want to see it for seeing something different, but expect nothing good.