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Beer for My Horses Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.
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Tracey Fragments, The
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MPAA RATING: Not Rated
Starring Ellen Page, Ari Cohen, Max McCabe-Lokos, Erin McMurtry, SlimTwig, and Julian Richings
Based on screenwriter Maureen Medved's novel of the same name, The Tracey Fragments uses highly inventive and dynamic Mondrian-like split screens to tell the story of why 15-year-old Tracey Berkowitz is riding out a blizzard in the back of a city bus, naked except for the tattered curtain she's wrapped in, and looking for her missing brother (whom she fears she has hypnotized). Onscreen for nearly every frame of the film, Ellen Page delivers a tour-de-force performance that cements her status as one of the most exciting young actresses today. (THINKFilm)
| GENRE(S): | Drama |
| WRITTEN BY: | Maureen Medved |
| DIRECTED BY: | Bruce McDonald |
| RELEASE DATE: |
DVD: July 8, 2008 Theatrical: May 9, 2008 |
| RUNNING TIME: | 77 minutes, Color |
| ORIGIN: | Canada |
All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...
The average user rating for this movie is 7.3 (out of 10) based on 11 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.
Chad S. gave it an8:
Form and content vie for the viewer's scrutiny in "The Tracey Fragments", as Ellen Page, the poster child for propagandizing teen pregnancy, stars in this micro-indie from Canada about a runaway girl who combs the unforgiving city by twilight for her missing younger brother. Page, to her credit, never gets lost in the movie's anarchy in the frame, as the filmmaker treats the screen and film language like a mad semiotician. Picking up where Mike Figgis left off, this celluloidal offspring of "Time Code", forces the viewer to be a co-creator, a vicarious editor who chooses and orders the boxes in a sequential order of his own making. But rather than project four instances of simultaneous time like Figgis' groundbreaking film from 2000, "The Tracey Fragments" covers the same interior(or exterior space) of the moment from different angles, distances, and perspectives with sometimes one to five cameras, and sometimes more. If two characters are isolated in their own separate box, the viewer is given the agency to create his/her own shot/reverse shot editing strategy. If the person's filmic sensibilities lean more on the European side, the eyes train on the speaker and the listener in unbroken simultaneity. "The Tracey Fragments" transforms your living room into an editing bay. Sometimes the choices the film offers can also have an effect on the space-time continuum. As Tracey Berkowitz rides the bus in a box on the top half of the screen, her memory is visualized beneath her seated self in its own separate boxes. If your attention wanders from Tracey's argument with Lance(Maxwell McCabe-Lokos) to Tracey on the bus, the girl's time with the homeless drifter plays like a flashback. But if you disregard the top half of the screen, her fight with Lance remains in the present tense. Form wins in "The Tracey Fragments", but content is no slouch either. Page gives a brave performance as a young girl who wears her heart on her sleeve, and that sleeve is bleeding. She wants a functional family. She wants to fit in at school. She wants a boyfriend. She has none of these things. Her life is one big, festering wound. The black screen is like a skin, and under this skin is life, Tracey's life. The three boxes that puncture the black screen look like cuts. Tracey doesn't bleed, but the film does it for her. Her life is like one constant flow of blood, mermaid's blood.
Sean E. gave it an8:
Not perfect but it is a visual storytelling experiment that succeeds. Get through some of the high school journal moments in the begining and you'll find a moving piece of work from Page and a McDonald. It's a movie that has stuck with me months after seeing it.
Jay H. gave it a3:
As much as I like Ellen Page, I did not like her in this, nor did I like the movie. The split screens is pretentious tripe in an effort to show originality and style, instead it is irritating and pointless. The gritty cinematography is no help. I didn't care about the characters nor what happened in the movie. I have to agree with the critics on this one.
Alex Z. gave it a10:
This was a great film that will turn many people off. But if you like independent cinema, give this a try.
Pete C. gave it a9:
A mesmerising, bleak and stunningly executed mind fuck from start to finish with a beautiful score, and a blinding performance from Page, this is definately recommended, but be aware this is disturbing and affecting stuff.
Cal K. gave it a10:
Page is incredible. See it just for her.
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