Ryan McNeil
THE TRACEY FRAGMENTS really bummed me out. Not because it’s a depressing story – although it is – but because I turned it on really wanting to like it. Unfortunately when the credits rolled I was left with a bad taste in my mouth.
THE TRACEY FRAGMENTS is a Canadian film by maverick director Bruce McDonald. It stars JUNO’s Ellen Page as Tracey Berkowitz – a misfit teen growing up in bland, blustery Winnipeg. The movie begins with her naked, wrapped in a shower curtain, sitting at the back of a city bus. How she got there, is slowly unveiled through the course of the film.
The movie tries something new, by overlaying frame after frame within the shot. Sometimes you’ll be watching one shot on the screen – sometimes two, with different angles. Often the screen divides into three, four, five boxes. It’s a great technique, and an idea that really could enhance a lot of stories. But cue the bad taste.
The split-screen presentation, and likewise the broken narrative, doesn’t do anything to enhance THE TRACEY FRAGMENTS. If anything, the trick makes the whole movie worse. I felt like I was watching a thirty minute story stretched into a seventy five minute film. What’s worse, is that the movie feels a tad on the long side – and it’s only one hour and fifteen minutes!
I’ll give THE TRACEY FRAGMENTS points for trying something new, but that’s about all I can commend it for. Not a bad rough draft Bruce – get back to me when you’ve completed your good copy.
I’m curious to know your thoughts on Page’s performance (that’s fun to say). Think she’ll end up a one-trick pony? Will she always be “Juno” or do you think she could branch out and defy the typecasters?
I had pretty mixed feelings about this one. I definitely appreciated it for the effort that obviously went into it, but I didn’t really like it that much. I had to watch it twice before I could even start getting past the style to the actual story which, as you said, is pretty thin and underdevelopped.