Cracks

The film also reminded me of Lord of the Flies. It was like a cinematic challenge: can the same horror emerge from the humanity of children if they are girls, not boys, and they are in a prestigious English school, not lost on a wild island. The answer is yes! I feel that I spoil quite a lot saying more, so enough said.

This film is very well played by all actors, including the young girls, directed beautifully and using both impressive scenery and great costumes. What I found a little odd was the speed with which the girls were switching from best friends to evil witches and back again. I am told children are like that, so I should have probably ignored that some of the girls there were hot as hell and considered them all well under age.

Eva Green played a complex character, easy to sympathize with at times, easy to loathe at others. She carried this film almost to perfection.

Bottom line: I kept this film in my private collection. I think it is a must see.

The story is quite good, easy to follow and the movie illustrates well how jealousy can result in bullying and ultimately into hate. Beautiful water shots and interesting story. The story is set in 1930's England and the arrival of a beautiful cultured girl stirs up everything. She's beautiful and talented but the school she is attending is backwards thinking and it seems that everybody just wants to carry on with the way the school has been run. The new Spanish pupil has a health condition which takes a predictable turn into the movie which a shame. Otherwise very good movie and well thought through dialogs.

The end is a bit short and abrupt.

Jordan Scott, niece of director Tony Scott who with his brother Ridley Scott serve a executive producers of this film, makes and impressive debut as a director/writer (with Ben Court and Caroline Ip) in this intensely interesting and well crafted adaptation of Sheila Kohler's novel CRACKS. This is a period piece (1934) that takes place in St. Mathilda's School in Stanley Island, England, an isolated all girl British boarding school. The mood is one of Gothic evil where rich young girls participate in the cloistered rigid education imposed by the matrons of the school -Miss Nieven (Sinéad Cusack), Matron (Helen Norton), and Miss Lacey (Deirdre Donnelly) - whose chief concern is to guard the reputation of the school at all costs, and lightened only by the presence of the swimming/diving coach Miss G (Eva Green) whom the girls admire for her exotic beauty, worldliness, supposed travel around the world, and her possessiveness of her brood.

One of the girls, Di (Juno Temple in a brilliant performance), is the team captain and the apparent favorite of Miss G - until the sudden arrival of a beautiful Spanish girl Fiamma (María Valverde) who tends to set herself apart form the rest of the claque (Di, Poppy (Imogen Poots), Lily (Ellie Nunn), Fuzzy (Clemmie Dugdale), Laurel (Adele McCann) and Rosie (Zoë Carroll). Fiamma is an expert diver and her gifts as a sportsman as well as her beauty attract Miss G, replacing Di as her favorite. In jealous rage Di gathers the claque and plans the exit of this unwanted intruder. How this backfires and increases Miss G's attraction to Fiamma leads down another path of evil that pulls this little tale of terror to a surprising end.

Eva Green manages to make Miss G a fascinating character and her gradual obsession with Fiamma and the direction that takes her is a very fine performance. But the entire cast - girls and teachers - is superb, especially Juno Temple in a career making role. The cinematography by John Mathieson finds both the haunting beauty of the isolated St. Mathilde's School and the splendid panoramas of nature add immeasurably to the film as does the musical score by Javier Navarette - a score that combines Anglican hymns with gentle piano music. This is a triumph for all concerned and bodes well for the career of Jordan Scott.

Grady Harp

Set in the 1930s, Eva Green is Miss G, a swimming / diving instructor at an exclusive girls boarding school and adored by her team of girls, captained by Di played by Juno Temple. They are enthralled by her tales and claims of worldly experience and travel which soon turns out not to be true. In fact, the team dynamic soon changes when an actual worldly wise and travelled Spanish girl joins the school who Miss G favours much to the anger of the other girls, particularly Di.

There has been some criticism that this is largely atmosphere over plot and there is some justification for this. That said, as with many sinister school stories, there are vicious undertones here and it all neatly builds through considerable tension to a shocking finale. Everyone in this is does a fine job and Eva Green has always been cut out for this sort of role, supported here by the growing stardom and acting talent of Juno Temple.

What a masterpiece Jordan Scott has put together here. She's created a work of art transcribing this novel to film with all it's topical and universal applications. Not many films move me to tears, but this one did.

Nothing is harder than to be great and to be misunderstood, to have no means of moving your talents forward as symbolized by both the isolation of the dramatic school on the island, and the the swim team. Nothing is harder than not to fit in. Nothing is more wrenching than potential and innocence gone to naught, and evil that lurks in all our hearts.

But there is redemption in true friends, the hero which rises to the cal in the best of our selves, if only for a moment, before it all dissolves into thin air....such stuff a dreams are made on.

Not only was the cast superbly selected, but the setting, on location shots, the costumes and very important the film score made this a superb experience for me.