hyped garbage

The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.

I enjoyed watching this film and would recommend other to give it a try , (as I am) but this movie, although enjoyable to watch due to the better than average acting fails to add anything new to its storyline that is all too familiar to these types of movies.

As I had stated once before there has yet been a film/ show in which Eva Green disappoints! Her performance alone is always captivating..along w the supporting actresses this movie was def a great watch and I went in not expecting or knowing much about it..it's based on an strict female boarding school in England during the 1930s and focuses on the relationships between a teacher and her charges and how they so desperately seek affection, attention and acceptance and especially the conflicts that arise during the arrival of a new charge..it gives you a great artistic cinematic imagery of how deep and far one can go for desire, obsession, jealousy, and the sense of belonging. I loved the way everything came together and how you remained on edge the entire time. This little indie film was as well captivating and emotional in itself and they did a great job showing you how regardless of your age there's always that deep dark desire inside of us regardless of who or what it may be aside from that I recommend it to anyone and I suggest you decide for yourself!

A carefully made, intelligent, powerful film that makes you wonder, among other things, why director Jordan Scott (the daughter of Ridley) has not had the opportunity to make anything else since 2009. It is a film that demands your attention: just when you think you may know where it is heading, it turns the other way. At first, it appears to be the story of a non-conformist teacher inspiring her devoted students; then, it seems to be about the jealously of the teacher's favorite student when she feels she's in danger of being overshadowed by a new arrival; then it looks like the teacher admires the new arrival because she has so much in common with her; and finally, it turns into something else, something darker, leading to a tragedy that has a real impact on the viewer. Exceptional performances, appropriate musical scoring and beautiful photography add to the experience. *** out of 4.

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.

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.