Movie Review: Fragments / Winged Creatures

The movie Fragments is one which I could have gone without watching. Hind sight is 20/20 though. Here's more about the movie and why I didn't quite like it.

The movie is centered around a random shooting at a diner. A guy walks in, shoots people, and then kills himself. Then for the duration of the movie we get to see how the events affected each character. Anne becomes very religious, her friend Jimmy shuts the world out and becomes mute, the guy with cancer runs off on a gambling binge, Carla falls in love with her baby's doctor and ultimately neglects her baby, and the doctor accidentally overdoses his wife with an experimental drug for her migraines. All these "after" scenes are interrupted by flashbacks to the shooting, each piece revealing more about the violent incident. With relation to the movie title, I can't quite decide if we're talking about "fragments" of the shooting or "fragments" of their lives. Both seem to have equal parts, but I would have liked to see more realistic, active, emotional fragments of their lives and less flashbacks to the diner.

I feel this movie tried to resemble Crash, with how its characters lives intertwined. Instead, this movie was more about how the shooting changed the lives of these characters who were all there that day. The story seems interesting but the movie just doesn't draw me in, I don't feel any of the characters emotions.

Anne's father was shot but right before the gunman pulled the trigger, Dad peed on himself. That little tinkle changed Anne's life so much? Wouldn't you have been terrified and upset, instead of worried about your Dad being so afraid that he peed on himself? Anne went back telling people how brave her Dad was, became so religious spreading words of hope and strength. Her friend Jimmy, now mute from the events, is so angry that Anne won't tell the truth about the wetting accident. This whole segment just ruined the movie for me. Anne and Jimmy would be traumatized from this shooting yet they seem to not feel anything but grief over not telling the truth of the peeing incident. It's ridiculous to me.

Let's take a look at the waitress from the diner. She keeps taking her baby to Dr. Pearce instead of a regular pediatrician. He makes one comment about her beauty and she falls head over heels in love with this doctor? Come on! I don't buy it. She becomes so obsessed that she makes her kid hungry so she can bring him into the doctor's office for help. Then she turns to bars and clubs and leaves her kid in the car. I just don't think so.

I feel more acceptance with the other characters lives. The Doctor who wants to help his wife's awful migraines and the cancer patient who goes to Vegas to gamble and though he has unfortunate events, in the end he's done something really special for his daughter - those two seem to have the best, most believable, post- traumatic ordeals.

Fragments left me feeling like this movie was only a fragment of a larger, more emotionally involving piece of the pie.