Cracks (2009)

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

Fmovies: While this might seem like your typical boarding school drama it isn't. It's a surprisingly beautiful film with wonderful cast and some fantastic scenery. However, it's Eva Green's performance and the music that won me over. The entire score is done by Javier Navarrete - who was nominated for an Academy Award for his score of Pan's Labyrinth - needless to say, it was phenomenal and really adds so much to the movie. It might be a little slow paced but I don't think that detracts at all. I found that you could sympathize with a lot of characters as the main themes were abandonment, favouritism, fear, and the desire to be wanted. It was nice watching the characters all develop and start to accept Fiamma.

I read the book after watching the movie and there were a few things that had been changed - the ending in particular. The book featured a more "Lord of the Flies" ending whereas in the movie it's not nearly as explicit and much less horrifying... if one can really say that. Either way, I'd highly recommend the film.

This is an amazingly brilliant film directed by the young Jordan Scott, who is female despite being called Jordan. She is the daughter (I almost said the son) of Ridley Scott and niece of Tony Scott, and after seeing this film I believe she has more artistic talent than both of them put together. It is simply incredible what she achieves in her portrait of an adult driven to madness by desire for a beautiful young creature, and her film really rivals Luchino Visconti's DEATH IN VENICE (1971) in my opinion, although in this film both the desired and the desirer are female, whereas in Visconti's film based on the Thomas Mann novella DER TOD IN VENEDIG, they were both male. (I once had to read the Mann novella in German and nearly fainted when I found a single sentence which was one and a half pages long with the main verb at the end! But that was Mann for you! Delayed gratification!) This film is set in the surreal setting of a remote girl's boarding school on 'Stanley Island' (wherever that is, as we are not told) in the year 1934. The school as seen in the film, a kind of Victorian Gothic pedagogical fantasy, apparently really exists as a structure somewhere in Ireland. But the geographical location is not really important, all that is needed for the story is the visual impression, the sea adjoining, the wild surrounding hills, and the isolation. This we certainly get, and the outside world barely exists in this hot house of passionate longings, schoolgirl intrigues, extreme homesickness verging on hysteria, and the coursing hormones of teenage girls who never get to see a boy. They are all in love with their mysterious and alluring mistress, 'Miss G.', played by the spectacularly weird and wonderful Eva Green (pronounced 'grain' because her father is Swedish and that is what they do there in Sweden during the long winter nights, they pronounce Green as 'grain'). Miss G. dresses exquisitely and has the finest imaginable artistic colour sense and personal style of dress and manner. The costumes in this film are a total knockout, designed by the super-talented Alison Byrne. A great deal of talent was also lavished on the sets and art direction. This is a real treat to the eye. As a production it is stunning in every respect. The fiery personality of Juno Temple (Juno was the Latin name for the queen of the gods, gedditt?, so of course she has to have a Temple) burns holes in the celluloid with her glowering stares of love, resentment, passion, jealousy, hatred, devotion, all those things mixed up which teenaged girls tend to have in such an unsorted state in their feverish psyches. She is a perfect screen match for the hyper-intense Eva Green. Juno is in love with Miss G. but Miss G. has no eyes for her anymore since the arrival of the super-cool, super-calm, super-beautiful Spanish dream dish, played by Spanish actress Maria Valverde, a silent brooding siren who drives Miss G. insane (literally, not just metaphorically). Despite the erotically charged atmosphere of this film, the director is too subtle to allow a single sexual scene. The most we see is Miss G. kissing Maria's neck, but that is enough to get Juno Temple so hysterical with jealousy that she precipitates a Twilight of the Goddesses, herself included. This is steamy stuff, very steamy stuff indeed, and all done without anybody touching anybody. Miss G. presides over a special collection of nymphets who form the school diving team. The team has never competed and the divers are pretty hopeless, but that all changes when the Sp

Cracks fmovies. This film is about a young female teacher in a prestigious British boarding school. She develops a special interest in one of her pupils, causing catastrophic changes in group dynamics.

"Cracks" is such a big surprise. It is technically well made, with great cinematography throughout. The best thing is that the plot is well told, it is engaging throughout the whole story. Every emotion and feeling is conveyed by expert story telling, such as the mood of the scene and the body language of actresses. They draw viewers into their world, and into their feelings. One can easily tell Miss G's attraction, confusion and panic; Di's jealousy and Fiamma's emotional change throughout the film. Such an empathy inducing film is rarely seen nowadays.

I do recommend "Cracks", and I hope it will reach a wider audience.

A very nice person suggested me to transcribe, what I actually wrote on boards about this movie, as a review, so here we go. In the first place, I decided that this movie became one of my all-time favourites... and why is that I 'decided'? Because the more I thought of this movie after watching it, the more I liked it. And what I mean by that is, the main reason I loved this film, would probably be because of the feeling it generated on me. It felt like I was reading a book, an actual & good one, you know, because of its twists, its dramatic scenes and the complexity of its characters & emotions.

I liked the way it explores human emotions and relationships but centered in a darker side, let's just say. The dichotomy showed was so well made. It was all so real and so unreal at the same time. Besides, it certainly shows us the thin line that exists between desire and obsession. PLUS, the fact that such things are still going on nowadays, which makes it very realistic.

Even though I do know this movie is in fact based on a book, I can't really comment from that perspective since I didn't read it, but anyway that's not my point here... The way I see it, In my opinion, this film is so smart, intriguing, fascinating and so beautifully executed that not only will stay with you long afterwards but also will make you talk, comment about it with others, you know, and that's just simply the kind of movie I love to watch but unfortunately, there aren't enough films like this.

In addition to that: The cinematography was just... breathtaking. The locations... esthetically pleasing. The soundtrack... impeccable. The wardrobe... simply gorgeous.

And well, what to say about the actings? They were just... impressive, top-notch, especially Eva Green's one, which was jaw-dropping. She literally gave me the chills with her performance. She left me fascinated. That being said, Jordan Scott you are (ei) genius! Needless to say, I'm looking forward to see more of your work.

I came across this film out of desperation the other night...just wanting to watch something decent. What I found was a gem of a movie. I wasn't familiar with anyone in the cast except Eva Green from Dark Shadows, who I didn't really have an opinion of either way and I'm not a fan of boarding school movies of any sort, but I watched it anyway.

Eva Green, as Miss G, was completely captivating and I could picture myself having a school girl crush on her when I was in high school...or heck, maybe even now. Her character comes across as educated, well traveled and totally alluring in every way...until a Spanish transfer student comes to the school and she begins to unravel.

The film is beautifully shot and the music is a perfect compliment to it. I really can't wait to see what else Jordan Scott does next.