TMC reviews… Cracks

by Florentine

When it comes to film, we each have our vices; that specific combination of cinematic ingredients that has us running for the box office entrance.  For one of my flatmates, this consists of a) an urban underdog at risk of being led astray by his/her more unsavoury peers, b) some half-arsed ability to sing or dance and c) use of said ability to overcome a life of crime and go to college/university instead.  Evidently, straight forward revision is not enough for some folk.  Others of course, might ask only for 90 minutes of consecutive explosions and a Hollywood A-lister capable of carrying off a vest-top to dodge them all.  I on the other hand, have always had this weird hankering for simmering, boarding school dramas.  And Cracks, I’m happy to say, did not disappoint.

Set on a remote island just off the British coast, Cracks delves deep into the stifling confines of a strict, all-girl boarding school.  Ruling the roost is swim team captain Di Radfield (a very accomplished Juno Temple, finally given a chance to shine) who, along with her clique of bunk-buddies, has final say on who gets let into the elite inner circle.  It quickly becomes clear that what this story is really about, however, is their enigmatic, ridiculously well-dressed and charisma-filled diving instructor Miss G (a pitch-perfect and stunning Eva Green).    Idolised and admired by her flock of impressionable young schoolgirls, including fiercely loyal teacher’s pet Di, Miss G has no qualms in using her sensuality and wildly embellished tales of travel & adventure to encourage the girls’ inappropriate crushes – or rather, ‘cracks’.  All their respective boats are set to rock however, when exotic Spanish aristocrat Fiamma (a very hot Maria Valverde – we’re allowed to say that because she’s actually 22) arrives at the school owing to a debauched fling with a young boy (gasp!) outside of her family’s class system.  Well-travelled, highly accomplished and oozing emotional maturity, Fiamma sticks out like a sore thumb among her thus far life-inexperienced peers… and immediately captivates the attention of a bewitched Miss G.

What follows is instant social-exclusion and some light middle-class bullying courtesy of the recently shunted/bitterly jealous top dog Di & co., as well as the gradual unravelling of Miss G’s ordinarily superior and self-assured exterior.  Fiamma is the embodiment of all Miss G once hoped she could be, and it soon becomes clear that she is nothing other than an extended student herself, having stayed on to teach at the very school she spent a protected and isolated childhood growing up in.  Unlike the other girls, Fiamma is both weary of and resistant to her teacher’s charms, which only serves to heighten Miss G’s dangerous obsession with her mysterious new pupil further; an obsession that will ultimately lead to the film’s disturbing and destructive climax (we’ll let you find that bit out for yourselves).

With this being her feature debut, there is no doubt in my mind that Jordan Scott is a serious talent to watch.  The remote island location allows her to draw us all effectively in to the girls’ sumptuous but stifled world of simmering tension and self-policed tradition, while every shot is carefully considered and rich in fairytale-esque finery.  Her characters, while somewhat recognisable from other films in the genre, are complex and perverse enough to warrant our unflinching attention – which is of particular credit to the talents of the (largely unknown) cast.  There are some great, stand-out moments that really drive the themes home as well – watch out for an erotically-charged, midnight skinny dipping session under the moonlight in particular.

So what do we say? An assured and very worthwhile offering for anyone who’s into speciality cinema and/or well-realised character drama.  It’s also a bit of a massive drooling sesh – 8/10.

Soak up the trailer…

On a separate issue, while I don’t want to throw out too many spoilers, it is fair to say that in Cracks we have another representation of ‘the lesbian’ as a perverse, mentally-unhinged societal outcast.  In short, a really creepy threat to all that is good and ‘normal’.  Now, please correct me if I’m wrong… but I’m pretty sure that almost every on-screen offering I’ve seen in recent years with allusions to gay women (with the exclusion of Imagine Me & You – oh, and a little thing called The L Word, sure) gives us a bit of an eggy reputation.  Chatting about this when we left the cinema last night, my friend and I discussed how – according to film and TV – nothing good can ever come out of being a lesbian and/or a Sapphic dalliance; a conversation whose final destination was, amusingly, poor old Sarah Barnes’ demise on Hollyoaks recently.  Of COURSE the murderer had to be a mentally unhinged, weirdo lez.  Don’t we all try to elaborately kill off our girlfriend’s exes?  Anyway, in a specially-themed list (we like lists), I’m going to take a speedy look through the most recent lesbian psychos of our time – mostly just to prove a little point to myself… but also for any filmmakers planning on building their next plot around a psychotic lesbian who eats her lovers’ internal organs for breakfast.  Or similar.  Don’t?  Please?

Judi Dench as the bitter, lonely and downright creepy Barbara Covett in Notes on a Scandal.  With her scathing diary entries and super disturbing levels of manipulation underpinned by decades of sexual introversion, Babs was the kind of lez that made you want to hide your dungarees when the cinema lights went up.

My Summer of Love.  Two girls?  In a relationship?  It could only ever end in one way… why, attempted murder of course.

Carmilla the vampire queen must be stopped from wreaking unspeakable evil on to a remote, rural village.  What is this unspeakable evil I hear you cry?  Turning grown women into lesbians, that’s what.  Of course, only the menfolk can ‘save’ them from this terrible fate… and so begins James Corden and Mathew Horne’s brave quest to rid the town of its wicked homos, I mean, vampires.  Obviously.  The underlying message of Lesbian Vampire Killers is arguably the biggest/only joke the script pulls off.

Lost and Delirious, for those who missed it, was a 2001 film starring Mischa Barton and loosely based on novel, The Wives of Bath by Susan Swan.  In brief; Tori, Paulie and Mary are dormitory buddies at, surprise surprise, an all-girls school (you only get lesbians when there are no men around to fix us, remember).  Tori and Paulie conduct a nice, normal lesbian relationship until the day that Tori’s homophobic family risk finding out about them.  Scared into denial, Tori begins to lead the life of a hetero – which includes dating Jake, from the nearby all-boys school.  We all know where this one’s going kids… Paulie obviously goes psycho, stabs Jake with a sword then jumps off the top of a building to her ‘rightful’ death.  Oh, and before you ask, Micsha’s the straight one.

And of course, we come full circle to Hollyoaks.  I love Hollyoaks; it’s positively glorious, indulgent trash TV and you can always be sure of a gay – remember Natalie Buxton and her lip piercing?  Phwoar .  Anyway, this time around we got a whole lez triangle no less which, according to the rule of girl-on-girl, could only lead to a doubly dramatic punishment for them all.  That being a grisly, splattery death from 12,500 feet, a wrongful imprisonment and of course, the biggest evil of them all (the others had previously slept with men so they didn’t deserve to be got as bad)… a manipulative, violently jealous murderess.

Bleak stuff.  Thanks for showing us the love world, geeze.