The Tracey Fragments

The Tracey Fragments (2007) Bruce McDonald

The Tracey Fragments, starring Ellen Page (Hard Candy and Juno) as its protagonist, Tracey Berkowitz, starts off as a film about high school worries and teenage angst. It then progresses into something a lot darker than that. The film explores the fine line between the well and the insane and matches opposites to create an extreme version of teenage life gone badly. Contrasting the rural suburban town in which Tracey lives at the start of the film, with the underbelly of the city and its dodgy inhabitants, soon to become her new home as she roughs it on the streets, the film manages to create two very different worlds. Tracey’s character at the start of the film is a 15 year old girl who has trouble fitting in at school and doesn’t get on well with her parents. This is a character which many teenage viewers can relate to and sympathise with. However, after the death of her younger brother, who disappears whilst in her care, she turns from confused, hormonal teen into a schizophrenic, borderline personality sufferer on the edge. Ellen Page’s youthful appearance paints a haunting and disturbing picture of a young girl on a downward spiral to depression. A love/ infatuation with a boy at school, who Tracey sleeps with, adds a strange and surreal element to the film. Billy Zero (Slim Twig) provides a fantasy world, with his rock star looks and front man swagger, again juxtaposed with the reality in which Tracey is living. The dream - like scenes are very well contrasted with the shots of the dark, drab buses and the badly lit underpasses in the city. The addition of the ‘shrink’, a strange looking she - male type character, always filmed in a white room has very clinical connotations, typical of films about ‘mental illnesses’. The way in which the film is edited illustrates that it has been adapted from a play. The cutting and pasting of scenes, which rapidly flick between one another, make The Tracey Fragments a very ‘artsy’ piece. A soundtrack boasting artists such as Broken Social Scene, Peaches, Foals, The FemBots and Patti Smith is also a perfect example of an indie film doing it right. This film is not for the easily depressed as it proves for uncomfortable viewing at times. Ellen Page plays a blinder as always with her witty but slightly insane take on the role. As far as independent films go, this is definitely something special.