The Tracey Fragments (2008)

An exploration of the heightened, extreme emotional sensations of adolescence, The Tracey Fragments is demanding and relentless, an image overload in search of resolution.

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.

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.

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.