Complete A-Z list


Cracks

6/10

Stars: Eva Green, Juno Temple, Maria Valverde, Imogen Poots, Sinead Cusack

Director: Jordan Scott

Rampant melodrama is just barely kept at bay in this sex-fuelled yarn set in an exclusive girls' school on Stanley Island in 1934.

Lesbian games mistress Miss G (Green) has a close-knit 'team' of girls rather in the manner of Miss Jean Brodie. She trains them to dive and takes them for nude midnight swims. Her pet is team leader Di (Temple, giving the film's only nuanced performance), whose pert nose is put well out of joint with the arrival of Spanish grandee Fiamma (Valverde), whose dives quite take Miss G's breath away. However, she has a cough, which, as all experienced filmgoers will know, presages doom...

The incestuous atmosphere of the establishment is well captured by debutante director Scott (daughter of Ridley), but the script frequently flirts with risibility. Why is the bosom-heaving Miss G gasping 'Don't make me beg!' to an unconscious Fiamma, when the object of her affections is clearly in a drunken stupor?

David Quinlan

UK 2009. UK Distributor: Optimum. Technicolor.
104 minutes. Not widescreen. UK certificate: 15.

Guidance ratings (out of 3): Sex/nudity 1, Violence/Horror 0, Drugs 0, Swearing 0.

Review date: 30 Nov 2009