Girls, I am telling you, it seems like so long that I have seen a narrative film--nothing but documentaries for me, lately, loves!!!!--that I practically ran to the IFC Theater to see Jordan Scott's (Ridley's daughter)debut feature, "Cracks." I was all psyched to see this, you better believe, with the New York Times review by Stephen Holden describing the whole thing as a cross between "Lord Of The Flies," "The Prime Of Miss Jean Brodie", "Heavenly Creatures" and "The Children's Hour," I thought this is the thing for ME!!!!!!! Well, loves, it was, but oh, what a tangled web it weaves.
There is one absolutely dumb thing about the film, and that is the title. Now, I do not know if the Sheila Kohler novel on which it was based had the same title, but that is the one thing that could have been improved. Oh, add "Shutter Island" and "The Beguiled" to the list of films it references!!!!!!!!!
Now, you know, as soon as you hear the story is set at a girls' boarding school, that there is going to be trouble!!!! At St. Mathilde's, an isolated place on an island off the Irish coast, I can tell you the standard text is "The Well Of Loneliness" by Radclyffe Hall. In fact, the rather ambiguous opening, that has the central characters--a young girl named Di (Juno Temple) and a teacher, Miss G (Eva Green) in a boat, with the girl thanking her for loaning a book to her, I had no doubts, darling, about what that book was!!!!! I also thought the film was going to be some kind of flashback. Except it was not....or was it????????
Basically, Di is the Alpha Girl of Miss G's diving team. Until a girl from Spain, Fiamma, shows up, and, with her distant manner, superior diving skills, stunning beauty, and asthma inhaler, you know damn well there is trouble ahead!!!!!
But the film confounds expectations. For example, it sets up Di as this film's Mary Tilford, but eventually she turns out to be a moralisitc sort. It sets up Miss G, the teacher (Eva Green) as a free thinking, Miss Brodie sort, but then we find she both is and isn't; she is ultimately rather pathetic........and lethal!!!!!!!!!
Miss G would have the girls believe she is the center of the world, and of Life Experience, with the travels she has done, and plans to do. Yet, as we learn, she has been at the school since she herself was a student, and never left. So she is physically and emotionally isolated, sexually repressed, and lesbian, to boot!!!!
A ticking time bomb!!!!! But at least she is an attractive lipstick lesbian, and not a fat, ugly, beans and franks one!!!!!!!!
Fiamma is the force that detonates the bomb. She upstages Di, becoming Miss G's favorite, which sets Di off. She unleashes Miss G's lesbian inclinations. And all explode one night, when, during the Midnight Feast Of St. Agnes, Fiamma gets drunk and passes out, Miss G takes her to her room, and makes graphic lesbian advances to her, which Di sees peering through the door. Poor Fiamma gets the worst of it, being treated the next day, as a sacrificial lamb, who has to be eliminated to "protect" Miss G. So the girls chase her into the woods, and beat her within an inch of her life, then, while she is gasping for breath, unable to find her inaler, the guilt ridden girls go for help. But Di again sees something she should not....Miss G finds Fiamma, and, because the girl rebuffed her lesbian advances, holds her in her arms, and lets her die, knowing full well where the inhaler is, and keeping Fiamma's hand from reaching it!!!!!!!!! Die, Miss G, you evil bitch!!!!!!!!
Di sees alll this, and Miss G sees her, so the Irish jig is up!!!!! The girls spurn Miss G, tossing their diving ribbons at her feet in scorn, she is forced to leave the school, and Di goes travelling, and that is the end.
I know what you are thinking, girls--Huh?????? To which I have to ask--what does the opening scene mean????? And where is Di going at the end???? As for Miss G, she is finished after the school; we last see her in a hotel room in the village???? Is she/does she kill herself, which is what I pretty much expected????? We never know!!!!!
Adding to the confusion, Stephen Holden, in his review, says Eva Green's performance as Miss G is on"the same arc as Glenn Close in 'Fatal Attraction'".
Oh, really, doll???????? Miss G suffers from spinster lesbian sexual repression; Alex Forrest was anything BUT; she had NO impulse control whatsoever. Which is why Miss G's allowing Fiamma to die is supposed to be so shocking, but sweetie, it did not surprise me one bit. An emotionally unstable lesbian killing the one who spurned her--one who was young, pretty, had life and the world ahead, which Miss G did not--no surprise to me, she kills her!!!!!!!!!
But it is surprising a relatively straightforward movie offers no explanations for outcomes of key happenings. It tosses in ambiguity almost as a second thought, along with all the other generic formulae. But we had such fun at "Cracks", girls!!!
Too bad Shellley Winters was not alive to make a token appearance!!!!!!
It just goes to show how much "The Well Of Loneliness" holds up today!!!!! Some lesbians like to pooo poo it, but, believe me, it still informs their lives!!!! Especially the ugly ones!!!!!!!!!!!
Thank God, girls, you have moi to inform you!!!!!!!! Besides, none of MY girls are ugly!!!!!!!!!!!
Kiss Kiss, loves!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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