What happens when you bring your child and wife to the hospital only for them to go missing? That is the premise of Fractured. Ray Monroe is heading to the in-laws, with his family, for Thanksgiving. Along the way, they stop for a break but things take a turn for the worse when his daughter, Peri, falls and needs to go to the hospital.
Fast forward to the hospital and Peri heads off with her mum Joanne for a scan. When they don't return Ray (Sam Worthington) clearly gets very worried. What follows is a thriller that pits Ray against the hospital staff. They deny ever seeing the child and claim that Ray is mentally unstable.
The police get involved, therapists get involved and the hospital is turned upside down. But still, Peri and Joanne are missing. So who is telling the truth? Is Ray crazy? Or is something more sinister going on in the hospital?
The plot is a familiar one to anybody who has seen Flightplan with Jodi Foster. The parent arrives with a child, the child goes missing and everybody thinks the parent is crazy. Fractured doesn't veer much off this particular track. In fact, it spends a solid hour chugging along on it. That's an hour of “Where is my family?” followed by “He's crazy, we have no clue where his family is.” And honestly not much more than that happens for the vast majority of the movie.
What adds to the confusion and indeed the mystery of the Monroe's is the style of filming. Directer Brad Anderson has deliberately shot it to make everything seem woozy, almost like the camera has a concussion. So you really never trust what you are seeing from Ray's perspective. Especially as everything else is so ambiguous, including the supporting characters.
Fractured doesn't necessarily bring anything new to the thriller genre but it is well-acted. And while you may have your suspicions about who is telling the truth, it does at least keep you guessing up to end.
