The production values are generally good and it has the advantage of being a mainstream weepie that is neither sugary nor patronising towards the audience. The treatment of the two iconic US derangements – guns and religion – is refreshingly non-judgemental and manages a balancing act that neither supports nor opposes. It is meant to convey a suggestion that these horrors happen to 'nice' people too. The movie is nicely bookended, starting with scenes of an abandoned kitchen montaged with respectable surburbania. In a frankly tedious, self-indulgent, predictably downward spiral of a film. This is an ensemble performance in the psychopathology of feeling over-dramatically sorry for oneself. But if the characters are in any way believable, it is very, very sad that they are so. I would like to be more sympathetic to such navel gazing as eulogised in Fragments. That each of these people eventually find an exit from their vicious cycle of senseless sorrow is more down to the determination to spin it out to feature length and then cut before we wonder what would happen if they had any real problems. 'Get over it,' is not something a sensitive person would ever think, much less say to a friend. And endlessly obsessing over one's worries. ![]() But although the American tradition is better at giving death its due, it is also more fond of the psychoanalyst's couch. An hour or so over cheese and ham sandwiches at the funeral – then like any trauma that goes with it – it's supposed to be over. We tend in the UK to give bereavement short shrift. The list of names goes on, and includes many actors worthy of better material than this. Kate Beckinsale is easy on the eye, even playing neurotically bedraggled. Forest Whitaker works overtime to imbue his lamentable character with something worth watching. ![]() Both the youngsters are played by charismatic individuals. It is, unfortunately, only mildly interesting. Beneath the placid exteriors there is deep sorrow needing to come out. The man who held the door open on the way out and let the killer in. ![]() One teenager becomes obsessed with born-again Christianity. One man is convinced he has a miraculous power of luck at the casino tables. One woman becomes obsessively promiscuous. Fragments follows the lives of various people after one such incident in a diner. Either way, they get shot, and hopefully something else happens to make it interesting. They go into diners so they can be immortalised in movies when they get shot. They don't really go into diners to get shot. I only know this because of countless movies where people go into a diner, ostensibly for a cup of coffee, but basically so they can get shot. A popular place to die in America is sitting in a diner.
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