Viewed as the sum of its sad incidents, The Tracey Fragments seems like the kind of adolescent melodrama that has become a staple of young-adult literature.
The Tracey Fragments (2008)
Tomatometer
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Reviews Counted:32
Fresh:12
Rotten:20
Average Rating:4.9/10
Consensus: Splitscreen intensive and at times ambiguous, this Ellen Page vehicle cum psychodrama takes audacious risks that may confuse.
Runtime: 77 mins
Genre: Dramas
Synopsis: Ellen Page (JUNO) stars in this dark comedy about a teen who goes in search of her lost younger brother. From Maureen Medved's script based on her own novel, THE TRACEY FRAGMENTS features music... Ellen Page (JUNO) stars in this dark comedy about a teen who goes in search of her lost younger brother. From Maureen Medved's script based on her own novel, THE TRACEY FRAGMENTS features music from indie band Broken Social Scene. [More]
Starring: Ellen Page, Ari Cohen, Max McCabe-Lokos, Erin McMurtry
Starring: Ellen Page, Ari Cohen, Max McCabe-Lokos, Erin McMurtry, Slimtwig, Julian Richings
Director: Bruce McDonald
Director: Bruce McDonald
Screenwriter: Maureen Medved
Producer: Sarah Timmins
Studio: ThinkFilm
Reviews for The Tracey Fragments
Unlike the frustrating gimmickry of Mike Figgis's Timecode and Hotel, McDonald's bedazzling multi-frame experiment poeticizes and enhances an otherwise slender story (forgivable at only 77 minutes long)...
Ellen Page remains one of the few stellar newcomers who deserves to be seen in anything she chooses to do.
The split screen has never been used so purposefully or with such aesthetic care, capturing the multiple perspectives of a character who cannot separate reality from illusion because the whole world is inside her head.
A multi-tiered narrative is not enough to patch the "been there, done that" storyline, even in spite of Page's usually memorable performance...
Director Bruce McDonald deserves high praise for the chance he takes, here, departing from convention by experimenting with split screens for the duration of the claustrophobic psychodrama.
But Tracey Berkowitz is the anti-Juno: Where Cody Diablo's heroine is insouciant and confidently nonchalant, Tracey is angry, insecure and filled with an unsettling self-loathing, which Page brings to life with a searing immediacy.
Likely to overwhelm and annoy viewers hoping for Juno Part II, it is nonetheless an audacious and imaginative work that's sure to remain one of the year's best.
Director Bruce McDonald splits his screen eight ways to Sunday in The Tracey Fragments, a splintered form ostensibly intended to match the psyche of his protagonist.
This is a tough watch, but a rewarding one for those open to experimentation.
I have a feeling that this is the last time we'll see a down-and-dirty Ellen Page.
An exploration of the heightened, extreme emotional sensations of adolescence, The Tracey Fragments is demanding and relentless, an image overload in search of resolution.
Even with the film's scant running time of 77 minutes, the unrelenting use of Mondrian splitscreen is bound to give anyone a headache.
The basic power of the plot's rewound revelation isn't there, shrapneled by the form . . . Some films reward multiple viewings, but this film, offering multiple views, falls short of being memorably singular.
Too insubstantial to sustain the stylistic excesses of the multiple split screen approach
All this proves is that watching a poorly executed scene from 19 perspectives is worse than watching it once in an unbroken frame.
[Page is] virtually the sole reason to see this duller-than-it-sounds experiment.
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