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
1 out of 1 people found this helpful.
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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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inauspicious but winning drama
Added 11/15/2009
***1/2
A low-budget comedy/drama set in and around the city of Pittsburgh, "Smart People" is so muted and laidback in its demeanor and tone that it practically borders on the innocuous. Yet, it is just that seeming banality that makes the movie work in the long run.
A pot-bellied Dennis Quaid plays a snarling, insensitive English Literature professor who`s pretty much gone to seed in both his personal and professional life, a character not too far removed from the one Michael Caine played in "Educating Rita." Lawrence Wetherhold is still so devastated by the death of his wife that he keeps all her clothes hanging in the bedroom closet as a sort of unholy shrine to the dearly departed woman. Needless to say, Lawrence hasn't made any great strides moving on with his life - until, that is, he strikes up a tentative romance with a physician and former student of his (Sarah Jessica Parker) who helps him to begin that too long delayed process of reconnecting himself to the world.
There's nothing particularly original or earth-shattering in this umpteenth tale of a burnt-out teacher finding a renewal of commitment and purpose in his profession, but writer Mark Poirier has provided enough in the way of ancillary details of character and plotting to at least keep matters interesting.
Ellen Page, for instance, plays Lawrence`s overly possessive daughter, Vanessa, a college-bound Young Republican who's more obsessed with earning a perfect score on her SATs than with establishing meaningful friendships with people her own age. Thomas Hayden Church portrays her adoptive Uncle Chuck, a black sheep wastrel who, in point of contrast, makes even Lawrence look like a paragon of togetherness and success. Yet, despite his own troubles and failings, Chuck is the one who tries to get his niece to loosen up a bit and finally start enjoying life.
Together these characters drift through life, making wry observations on their situations and relationships on their way to a happy ending.
There may be a few too many musical montage sequences for the movie's own good, but the expository scenes, as directed by Noam Murro and performed by the actors, nicely capture the unhurried rhythms and simple ironies of everyday life.
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This is a really great 95 minute trailer for a movie I'd really like to watch sometime. Thomas Haden Church provides comic relief from the dire and unrelenting tension of the indie style acoustic guitar which comprises the bulk of this film. I suppose if you're a big fan of sentiments like 'Let sleeping dogs lie,' this movie might be right up your alley. I prefer cartoons.
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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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