Film Review: The Tracey Fragments (Victoria Film Festival)

The Tracey Fragments, starring my beloved Ellen Page, is the second film I've seen at this year's film festival. The film is directed by Bruce McDonald, and written by Maureen Medved (it's a screenplay adapted from her novel of the same name). Just seeing Ellen Page's name as the title role made my walk into the theatre with high expectations. I absolutely adored Page in Juno. Whether or not I would consider her performance in Juno Best Actress worthy is questionable, but I would be very excited for her to see her win the award at such a young age. As much as I loved Page in Juno, I've started to get the feeling that she is extremely type-cast. Her young looks make her a perfect candidate for any and every femme-fatale role. That is not to say she doesn't play these roles extremely well because she does.


Now comes the problem that is The Tracey Fragments. The film portrays the life of a 15-year-old girl who is subject to an unbelievably large amount of bullying at school, a stereotypical broken home life, and myriad of other ungodly trials and tribulations which find her wrapped naked in a curtain. Through the movie Tracey continues to state: "I'm just a normal girl." Umm...no, you're not. I understand this statement is supposed to be ironic, but there was no moment in the film where I felt a deep connection with the protagonist. Her life was too chaotic for me to relate to it. I know people who have gone through hard times, but this sort of stuff would never happen to a normal human being without them ending up dead.

The writing of this film is extremely haphazard and cliched. It is presented in an avant-garde form with multiple frames on-screen simultaneously portraying different points-of-view and perspectives. I assume this is a representation of the "fragments" of the story. At best, the form was a veil to cover the poor writing. There were times when the script was so unbelievable I felt insulted and wanted to leave the theatre.

In the end I just felt bad for the film's editor. I'm sure that he/she poured a lot of energy into this film and for it to turn out so terrible is a shame. This film had a sellout crowd and I can only hope that it does not receive the Victoria Film Festival's viewer's choice award as a result. My vote still goes to The Hammer.