"The Tracy Fragments"

7/29/2008

This is a little independent movie starring that very watchable Ellen Page who made such a big splash in "Juno". I actually really like her. I dug her in "Hard Candy", too. That's an intense film.

I really liked the premise I read of this movie. It opens with Tracy sitting on a bus wrapped only in a shower curtain. We want to find out how and why she got there. Along the away, we find out she's been looking for her little brother whom she managed to hypnotize into thinking he's a dog. Her parents have sent her to a psychiatrist who may actually need one himself. On her search, Tracy fantasizes about a new boy at school whom she likes.

This is, for lack of a better description, a sort of coming of age story. But it's a tragic one. I think Ellen Page is great. She's sensitive, rebellious, sexy and naive all at once. The rest of the actors are good, too, but I'm not familiar with any of them.

The way the film is presented is as much a character as any of the actors. That is both a good thing, and bad. Much of the film's scenes are shown in multiple frames. This is an obvious reference to the title, "fragments", as well as the idea that this story is told in the first person via Tracy's memories. The idea that our memory is not always linear, that it comes in pieces, so all the varied frames supposedly represent that idea.

Honestly? It got kinda annoying after a while. I don't mind telling a story through memories, starting at one point and working our way back to find out the events that got them there, but when you start messing with the frames on screen, it gets pretty irksome. And these things move around and change images, it just gets to be too much.

Other than that filming style, I liked the story. It's no musical comedy, though, so don't expect "Juno", because it isn't. And I think it's definitely a movie rental rather than a theater movie. It doesn't cost as much. : )

See ya in the queue, kids.