Cracks (2009)

This movie is a suspenseful masterpiece and coming-of-age period drama, with slow tension building to a grim climax.In Cracks, you will see several youth lost and forgotten at a countryside boarding school, idolizing the "fearless" teacher/swimming coach Miss G. Alas, the youth slowly discover that people can be cunning, cruel, and dishonest. It only takes one outsider to come along to shift the balance in the girls, and trigger in their mentor a slow descent into obsession and jealousy.Miss G emanates confidence, power, and intensity, but the film masterly reveals over time that all is not as it seems. Everything she created was a carefully crafted charade that crashed down when she was confronted with a person more worldly and refined, simultaneously triggering sexual awakening, jealousy, and hostile obsession.This film is somewhat disturbing for its portrayal of certain sexual themes (I will leave it at that to keep from spoilers), but unbelievably well-acted, with a gripping script and Oscar- worthy cinematography. It is, in short, a masterpiece about shattering facades and growing up, albeit the growing pains are gritty and traumatic. No one in this film is without blame for what happens in the climax, but the lessons learned last a lifetime.This film is an underrated gem of cinema, and I wish it had garnered more attention when it was released.

What attracted me to this movie was interesting storyline and Eva Green. And when story got slow and little bit boring, I kept watching it with my eyes wide open because of beautiful cinematography: scenes of nature (especially water), flowers; subliminal messages 'bout transience of time and rather life than death. First class cast did a great job of convincing the audience in credibility of their theatrics, and we all could have empathized with any of a girl in that private school - luckier with Fiamma, less lucky with other, poorer girls, and some of us (I'd say most of us) with a teacher, dreamer with her unfulfilled dreams which she weaves of stories from realistic fairies from all around the world. At the end, you can't decide who are you more sorry of. Luckily, movie provides enough empathy for every watcher. There are cracks in everyone, but only few can find courage in themselves, make metaphorical glue, and wait and see what happens next (with their reasonable desire(s)). Message Miss G thought us was that you should indeed turn your dreams into reality, because if you get stuck in the mold, every day you're procrastinating "getting out", it would be harder.. and you'll end up changing 5 things from your commode. Forever. And remember - chase your desires until they're not hurting someone else.

Tense and suspenseful, Cracks is a well-paced, carefully crafted period piece. It is about the consequences of creating insular environments which breed mean-spirited hierarchies and draw ill-motivated authority figures. Situations in which the authority figures empower, reward and smile upon petty tyrants because they share the same deviant mindset and orientation.In this offbeat tale of hatred and hazing, the cloistered children of favored society engage in cruel conformity at an all-girls' school in rural 1934 England. The story focuses on an elite Brody set of girls who comprise the academy's token diving team. The girls are mentored by their vapid instructor and swim coach, Miss G. (Green). (An apparent tribute to Muriel Sparks's novel and film, The Prime Of Miss Jean Brodie.) None of the students are really happy or normal. They are the issue of the minor gentry. Their absentee parents unceremoniously dump them off at St. Mathilda, and never return. Disposing of their kids frees the adults to pursue their lavish lifestyles. And the girls know it. The polite rejection, combined with a stifling parochial environment turns the kids into seething stew-pots of repressed self-doubt and resentment.A titled Spanish heiress arrives. She is a precocious and cultured patrician. Of course the other girls retaliate. Fiamma (Valverde) becomes a magnet for their jealousy, licentiousness and rage. While most of the girls lament that their parents seem to have forgotten about them and will never bring them home again, privileged Fiamma is vocally confident that her stretch will be short. Fiamma enjoys lavish gifts and delicacies from home. She shares them with her classmates while regaling them with wondrous tales of travel experiences and folklore. This only make things worse.Di Rutfield (Temple), the swim team captain, is at once overshadowed and out-performed. Fiamma outflanks her socially, culturally, intellectually, and most devastatingly of all, athletically. Di no longer sets the bar by which the other girls are measured. To the contrary, she must now measure up to it.More perilously, Di has lost her favored status as the apple of Miss G's eye. Coveted, courted and pampered by the girls' diving coach, Di was bonded to her by a barely suppressed. mutual undercurrent of romantic and sexual high voltage. Upon Fiamma's debut, Miss G's attentions shift to the enigmatic new enchantress.My own snobby boarding school wasn't Catholic, and it was well enough administered that there was a minimum of clique exclusiveness, hazing and cruelty. But oh my, do I ever recognize the personality of Miss G. She is a tortured closet lesbian, perpetually titillated by her juvenile charges. A bundle of insecurities and self-perceived inadequacies, Miss G. fortifies her ego by reveling in the matriarchal power or her position. She is quietly desperate, dangling on a smoldering time-fuse, and primed for an angry episode of sexually frustrated, catastrophic hysteria at the first hint of a substantial challenge to her authority.Damningly, Miss G. is also a fraud who recites adventures from Mary Kingsley's Travels To West Africa (1897), claiming the experiences to be her own. Having been at St. Mathilda continuously since she was a schoolgirl, Miss G. convinces her students that she's a feisty, liberated explorer. Fiamma really has traveled however, and Miss G resents it. Gifted, independent, rebellious by the standard of the day, it's obvious Fiamma is more wordily and educated than Miss G.Miss G. loves Fiamma, and she hates her. She wants to alternately kiss and slap the girl. Miss G. is drowning in a swirling infusion of hormonal captivation and intimidated insecurity. She veils her own closeted sexuality and verboten urges for Fiamma behind a tenuous mask of low key hostility. Churning under her increasingly strained visage lurks a poisonous cocktail of spite, infatuation, and abject lust. Tensions amplify. Fiamma, Di, and Miss G. square off. Together they plunge into a sensational maelstrom of bitter jealously, taboo coitus, madness, and salacious mayhem.As in William Golding's novel Lord Of The Flies, there's an irony at play in Cracks. In Golding's work, which has inspired several films, schoolboys are sent away from England to protect them from war violence. Yet they promptly do battle with each other upon being shipwrecked. Becoming utter barbarians, they revert to the trees within hours of marooning.In Cracks the girls study Christian values, social and intellectual refinement, self control and etiquette. When Fiamma smashes their authoritarian hierarchy, the schoolgirls' cultural and humanist graces evaporate. Collectively, they atavistically plunge to the lowest common denominator of bilious rivalry, sexual jealousy and brutality.Cracks carries strong shadings of the Muriel Sparks novel and film, The Prime Of Miss Jean Brodie, but it takes a dark departure. Tense, suspenseful, Cracks' gorgeous cinematography and top tier production values accentuate its thoughtfully plotted storyline. The result is a salacious firecracker of a picture! Cracks is a must-see experience for fans of such films as Heavenly Creatures, Loving Annabelle, and Picnic At Hanging Rock.

It's hard to spot any weaknesses in this excellent 1934-drama, dealing with teenage girls in their boarding school.You may say that this school's location in the countryside is more isolated than one may believe possible. On the other hand, this isolation is functional to make 'Crack' work.Apart from this, there can only be praise for this film. First of all, its acting stands out. Providing us with a most credible picture of life inside such a school. Also connecting well with this film's coherent story. Second, acting and story are very well supported by a high-quality shooting, that lends much from the lovely landscapes around. Acting, story and shooting all excellently merge together into this fine piece of entertainment.