my broken self
Added 8/31/2009
Shards of cubist consciousness flicker, dance, fade, sparkle.
Phantoms of inner life move across the screen, killed by the brute physical realities of outer life, silenced out of emotional necessity.
The bronze vesper scene. The twin tragedies of becoming who you're not and being who you are.
How many movies were shot to make 1 movie? This is visual music that goes beyond melody or rhythm. Like Evangelista and The Vertical Ray of the Sun, it's a world you enter. Watching over and over.
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gimmicky but sometimes compelling indie teen drama
Added 8/26/2009
If it's true, as Marshall McLuhan has suggested, that the medium is indeed the message, then "The Tracey Fragments" proves that theory in spades. This highly idiosyncratic work has as its focal point "Tracey Berkowitz - 15 - just another girl who hates herself" - a description that comes straight from the mouth of Ms. Berkowitz herself. Tracey is a deeply unhappy youngster who hates her (admittedly horrible) parents, is terrorized by all the "cool" kids in school for insufficient mammary-gland development, spends most of her nights riding the subway, hooks up with a psychotic lowlife who turns out to be a drug dealer, and searches for her little brother whom she's hypnotized into thinking he's a dog and who goes missing by a frozen river when she`s supposed to be watching out for him. To help mitigate her misery, Tracey also dreams of having a relationship with a brooding "emo" bad boy at school and fantasizes that she is a famous, universally worshipped rock star.
But it is not Tracey's story that is of primary interest here; rather it's the cut-and-paste filmmaking style director Bruce McDonald has employed to create a sense of fragmentation and dislocation in the viewer - intended, obviously, to mirror the highly chaotic and disordered nature of Tracey`s world and life. With rare exceptions, the screen is occupied by as few as two and as many as a dozen shots at a time, often portraying the same sequence from slightly different angles or at slightly different moments in time, or portraying thematically related scenes simultaneously. The question inevitably arises, is the approach effective in what it's trying to accomplish or does it serve as a distancing device for those of us who are trying to enter into Tracey's mind and world. I imagine that different viewers will come to varying verdicts on that point.
Personally, I appreciate what McDonald is trying to do here more than I admire it. "The Tracey Fragments," which Maureen Medved has adapted from her own novel, offers many probing insights into the subject of teenage angst, particularly as regards the tremendous pressure modern young people are put under to "measure up" and conform to some arbitrarily agreed-upon social standard. And "Juno"'s Ellen Page gives a stunning performance as the young woman caught in an ever-tightening web of self-hatred (this is, in many ways, the darker side of "Juno," and Page is much less mannered in this role).
But, frankly, the movie probably would have been more moving and involving without all the migraine-inducing imagery which succeeds mainly in throwing us out of the story. In fact, there is only one scene in which the split screen technique actually serves a narrative purpose - and that is when Tracey is hiding behind a curtain while her drug-dealer friend is being savagely beaten by the irate boss to whom he owes money. Most of the rest of the time, the approach feels more like a gimmick designed to separate this film from the rest of the "distressed-teen indie" pack than an artistically viable choice in its own right.
Still, if you can get past all the artiness and visual distraction, you might just find in "The Tracey Fragments" a thoughtful, sensitive and ineffably sad glimpse into a young woman's heart.
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Realistic, in a surreal way
Added 7/15/2009
Ellen Page carries off the fifteen year old Tracey Berkowitz beautifully. She's honest, confused, hormone-addled, bullied, determined, naive, and desperate. She wanders between fantasy, memory, and reality moment by moment, and the kaleidoscopic display on screen captures that. She makes all the wrong choices but for all the right reasons. In her own words, "age fifteen, a perfectly normal girl who hates herself."
The furious father, robotic mother, androgynous therapist, and overly playful brother all appear to us colored by the wild emotional tints of this young woman. Page, in an "extras" interview, characterize Tracey as honest above all. I guess she is. She hangs it all out, all the time, as so many young girls do, and shows us what she sees - even if no one else in the world would see what she does.
This enjoyable film glories in its minimal budget. If you want plot, resolution, and events causally leading to others - well, maybe you haven't spent enough time around teenage girls. This projects a disjoint character that seems entirely too true to teenagers I've known.
-- wiredweird
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I had to hit eject on this after about 30 minutes of torture. There is no plot, no story line, just endless multi-screen images of a 15-year-old girl's angst-ridden life. Maybe if you're 15, this film will appeal. It just looks like someone discovered split screens and went crazy with it. Skip this one.
1 out of 2 people found this helpful.
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Two Stars Just For Ellen Page
Added 5/5/2009
I would give this movie 5 stars because of Ellen Page. I agree with a lot of the reviews that she is a very talented actor, however, this movie was simply annoying. If I were watching this in a movie theater I would have honestly walked out . . . very unhappy.
1 out of 1 people found this helpful.
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Not what it was said to be...
Added 11/7/2009
I selected a new DVD for this purchase. When I got it in the mail the product was open, clearly used, and the package was even slightly damaged. I contacted the seller and she reimbursed me fully. I would have rather had the new product, but appreciated the refund.
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Is this really the way smart people think of themselves?
Added 10/27/2009
Much as I admired Dennis Quaid's performance in this film, it bothers me that the director buys into the myth of "brain smart--heart stupid" so glibly--a decidedly anti-intellectual message. It's just another example of bigotry masquerading as comedy.
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Smart People
Added 9/16/2009
This film took place where my son graduated college so that is why I bought it.
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