Cracks is a must see, visually lush, psychological thriller that unfolds in an all-girls boarding school. Even though there were no supernatural elements, and the story is completely dissimilar, Cracks reminded me of The Moth Diaries. I was completely transfixed and immersed in the world depicted in Cracks until an event that starts a chain of events that completely disrupts the lives of the schoolgirls. At that point, Cracks becomes somewhat more predictable, but no less disturbing.
Cracks features strong performances by Eva Green as the sleek, modern and daring girls’ instructor. Green is always excellent at playing beautiful women who fail to hide the turmoil inside in such films as White Bird in a Blizzard. Green’s talent is her ability to at one moment seem as if she is an alabaster statue that comes to life and the next a woman with a skeleton clawing at the surface. Juno Temple, whom many people may know in her performance as a mentally disabled girl from Killer Joe, plays Di, Green’s prize pupil. Temple has a talent for seeming sanely unhinged as she psychologically tortures her fellow classmates and jealously craves Green’s attention. María Valverde plays Fiamma, a new pupil who is effortlessly graceful, exotic and excellent. Even though she is clearly the best, she treats everyone kindly unlike Di. Her appearance upsets the girls’ hierarchy and exposes Green’s perfect facade. Instead of treating Fiamma as a person, her instructor and fellow pupils project their frustrations and desires on her.
Jordan Scott did an amazing job directing Cracks. Real talk: how hard is it for women to make movies? Jordan Scott is Ridley Scott’s daughter, and Tony Scott’s niece. Jordan Scott has nepotism and talent, but Cracks seems to be her only full-length movie. What the hell? Stop giving her dad movies. His time has passed. I need more movies by Jordan Scott.
Apparently critics did not seem to like Cracks as much as I did, but instead of critiquing the often-approached tableau of hidden abuse behind the boarding school’s facade of perfection and horrors of institutionalized life, I think Cracks breathed fresh life into the tropes. Cracks moved me in its human portrayals of each person. Cracks does not absolve anyone from blame, but Cracks does not demonize its characters. They are human-simultaneously the worst and the best.
Apparently Cracks’ only failure is that it failed to establish the real reason that Fiamma’s father sent her away.
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Everyone talks like she had a love affair with a boy from a lower class, but according to imdb commuter, AzaleaRose, apparently the Spanish letters imply that she was raped by an older man, which makes what happens to her in Cracks exponentially more tragic.