This movie is like a film school editing project that got exposed to gamma rays and turned into a raging behemoth. It's hard not to be impressed by the tremendous level of skill and effort put forth here. I just wish it been for a more worthwhile purpose.
Tracey Berkowitz (Ellen Page) is a 15 year old Canadian girl with a whole lot going on. So much so, the screen can barely contain it all and becomes a crazy quilt of individual image boxes, sometimes a dozen or more at a time. It's a visual bombardment clearly meant to overwhelm the viewer. For myself, I just got eye strain. That's because for all the multiplicity of sights and iteration of sounds, for all the non-liner digressions and monologues spoken directed into the camera, neither the story nor the dialog nor the performances here are anything to write home about. The Tracey Fragments has to be evaluated like a gourmet meal. No matter how marvelously prepared or splendidly presented, what ultimately matters is how it tastes and this film is rather bland and unsurprising.
Caught up in a stream of Tracey's consciousness, we're flashed back and forth amongst her dysfunctional parents, torments at school, imagined hipster boyfriend, runaway life on the street, cross-dressing therapist, a guy named Lance from Toronto and the disappearance of Tracey's barking younger brother. Sometimes it's reality, sometimes it's fantasy and sometimes it's a mix of the two. But all of the cinematic prestidigitation in the world, and this movie includes almost all of it, can't disguise that there's really nothing all that interesting about Tracey or her life.
Maybe there could have been, if this motion picture had stopped running in place long enough to catch its breath. If the barrage of imagery had been limited to, for example, giving us Tracey's impressions and reactions to the things that happen to her or presenting her own self-deluded view of the world next to how things really are, it might have been quite effective. Translating every little thing through a kaleidoscope, however, prevents any individual element of Tracey or her story from shining through. It's impossible to enjoy or be touched by anything about this tale except the exceedingly complicated way it's told. Emphasizing style so totally over substance is not something that connects with me.
It's not fun to be negative about something so well made, but sitting through The Tracey Fragments is a chore. I can't call it a bad film because nothing about it has a chance to be either good or bad. Everything is simply overpowered by the ocular frenzy of director Bruce McDonald.
Tracey Berkowitz (Ellen Page) is a 15 year old Canadian girl with a whole lot going on. So much so, the screen can barely contain it all and becomes a crazy quilt of individual image boxes, sometimes a dozen or more at a time. It's a visual bombardment clearly meant to overwhelm the viewer. For myself, I just got eye strain. That's because for all the multiplicity of sights and iteration of sounds, for all the non-liner digressions and monologues spoken directed into the camera, neither the story nor the dialog nor the performances here are anything to write home about. The Tracey Fragments has to be evaluated like a gourmet meal. No matter how marvelously prepared or splendidly presented, what ultimately matters is how it tastes and this film is rather bland and unsurprising.
Caught up in a stream of Tracey's consciousness, we're flashed back and forth amongst her dysfunctional parents, torments at school, imagined hipster boyfriend, runaway life on the street, cross-dressing therapist, a guy named Lance from Toronto and the disappearance of Tracey's barking younger brother. Sometimes it's reality, sometimes it's fantasy and sometimes it's a mix of the two. But all of the cinematic prestidigitation in the world, and this movie includes almost all of it, can't disguise that there's really nothing all that interesting about Tracey or her life.
Maybe there could have been, if this motion picture had stopped running in place long enough to catch its breath. If the barrage of imagery had been limited to, for example, giving us Tracey's impressions and reactions to the things that happen to her or presenting her own self-deluded view of the world next to how things really are, it might have been quite effective. Translating every little thing through a kaleidoscope, however, prevents any individual element of Tracey or her story from shining through. It's impossible to enjoy or be touched by anything about this tale except the exceedingly complicated way it's told. Emphasizing style so totally over substance is not something that connects with me.
It's not fun to be negative about something so well made, but sitting through The Tracey Fragments is a chore. I can't call it a bad film because nothing about it has a chance to be either good or bad. Everything is simply overpowered by the ocular frenzy of director Bruce McDonald.