Fracture came out around the same time as In My Father's Den, another Maurice Gee adaptation, and seemed to disappear from the public eye as quickly as IMFD became THE NZ film of the year in 2004 and, for many, the great NZ film we had been waiting for since old PJ started to hint that it might be possible. Which was a big plus for IMFD but a big shame for Frature - for this isn't a bad little film. If not quite up their with its bigger and certainly superior cousin this film is still there or abouts nonetheless, and a lot better than I suspected it might be. The film basically takes its title as the basis for its narrative structure: shards of what turns out to be a relatively simple story are posited within the labyrinthine walkways of Wellington's Kelburn, a hillside suburb renown for its confusing back streets and pathways, vertical steps and an ever-extending university campus. The violence of the fast cutting and swift editing of the opening that includes a bungled burglary and the story's monadic attack on a woman slowly resolves into a violence of a different kind. The cerebral, the domestic, the emotional come under fire from various quarters, culminating in death for one protagonist and a whole swag of grace for another. It seems to work in a similar way to the excellent Lantana, if not pulling off the same emotional intensity. Its good, better than than the other reviewer here might have you believe. Well I think so anyway.
