Cracks [London Film Festival]

I watched Cracks by accident. Literally. The tape with Sweet Rush which I went to see turned out to be unusable and the nice lady from RichMix cinema anounced that instead of the Polish master's latest feature, we're going to see a second film by the daughter of Ridley Scott. 80% of the audience left so I had an extraordinary experience of watching a London Film Festival movie in an almost empty screening room.

And I'm happy I haven't left like others because it turned out to be a mysterious movie. And I like mysteries. Especially when they make sense.

So, Cracks is about a group of girls living in a dormitory located on one of the British islands. They attend classes and swimming lessons given by beautiful Mrs G. (Eva Green), play games and generally have a lot of fun. The teachers are not very strict and Mrs. G is their best friend. It seems like a paradise school. It seems...

One day a Spanish girl, Fiamma (María Valverde), arrives and joins the class. She's different than the English girls. She's prettier, smarter and can rotate upon completion of the dive. She has read the wise book and travelled all around the world. The leader of the girls, Di Radfield (Juno Temple) cannot stand the fact that she's not the one that sets example anymore.

That's all normal. What is more strange, Mrs. G changes upon arrival of Fiamma. The teacher, who also happens to be a traveller and a bibliophile, finds the new situation disturbing. She thinks she's losing the authority among girls and desperately wants to make friends with Fiamma, to prove her position.

And then more and more mysterious things start to happen which I'm not going to share here to keep you interested.

Cracks is astonishing in its visual form. It's a pleasure to look at the gloomy school building contrasted with the colorful beauty of the surrounding forrests, meadows and the sea. The atmosphere of the film constantly changes from a cheerful picnic to a dark mystery. And the mystery seems so dark that we get a bit disappointed when it eventually resolves and turns out to be a rather simple story.

This is my only complaint about the movie. I haven't read the book on which it's based, but it certainly seems that the film oversimplifies the original. Still it's a nice little feature and I'm very looking forward to the future projects of Mrs. Scott.