A 15-year-old girl navigates a dangerous urban landscape in search of the brother whom she has hypnotized into believing he is a dog in director Bruce McDonald's pop-infused, 21st century variation on The Catcher in the Rye. When the viewer first meets Tracey (Juno's Ellen Page), she is sitting naked in the back of a bus with only a flimsy shower curtain to guard her from the elements. Tracey is the broken product of an unstable home; her father (Ari Cohen) regards his children as "accidents,"
and her catatonic mother (Erin McMurtry) only pauses from watching television long enough to light up another cigarette. Upon discovering that a botched hypnosis experiment between Tracey and her younger brother, Sonny, has left the young boy emotionally transformed into a canine, the decision is made to send Tracey to a psychiatrist. Tormented by her classmates and lost in fantasies about her boyfriend and rock & roll savior Billy Zero (Slim Twig), the emotionally complex young woman has become enamored with a new student at school who doesn't even realize she exists. Later, when Sonny disappears, Tracey takes it upon herself to locate her missing sibling and make sure that he finds his way back home. While at first it appears that benevolent rent boy Lance (Maxwell McCabe-Lokos) may be her guiding light through the darkened city streets, Tracey quickly learns that to trust is to place your life in the hands of someone who may sell you out at a moment's notice. Now naked and desperate in the middle of a labyrinthine metropolitan nightmare, Tracey makes it her mission to find Sonny no matter how harrowing her quest may become. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi
This audacious puzzlement is worth seeing, I guess, for some startling and innovative visual designs. But it doesn't amount to anything more substantial than a technical tour de force.
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.
This angsty Canadian movie directed by Bruce McDonald takes its title all too literally: Every sequence is splintered into multiple split screens, which means that you can follow the dreary, semi-incomprehensible action from many viewpoints at once.
An exploration of the heightened, extreme emotional sensations of adolescence, The Tracey Fragments is demanding and relentless, an image overload in search of resolution.
If you're not clear what all the fuss over Ellen Page is about, check out this 2007 Canadian film..., a showcase for her extraordinary and challenging talent...
To criticize a film called The Tracey Fragments for being too fragmented may sound a bit on-the-nose, but this experimental drama from Canadian director Bruce McDonald is interesting for a while and then goes to pieces.
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.
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.
"Run Lola Run" is the firt movie that came to my mind. "Paranoid Park" somehow too. The movie runs exactly as our mind: a constant in and out of thoughts, fellings, memories and made up facts. Fragments that are part of many stories and end up in a single one. Messy. If there is a truth, it´s
hidden somewhere.If you can´t follow Tracey´s mind (it can be tiresome sometimes), check this unplugged version: Tracey Refragmented It´s also interesting , but not the same type of amazed confusing "experience" the film itself can offer.
Hmmm... it was hard to watch with all the PIP boxes everywhere. Might have been really good aside from that. Page was very deep and amazing in her role though.
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