Netflix 'Fractured' movie review: A father desperately looks for his family in a frankly painful maze
Netflix's 'Fractured' begins on an eerie note. We follow Sam Worthington's Ray Monroe drive his wife, Joanne Monroe (Lily Rabe), and daughter Peri Monroe (Lucy Capri) after a disappointing Thanksgiving dinner. Their daughter Peri is in the backseat unto herself while her parents are fighting first about the dinner and then an unhappy marriage.
They have to pull into a rest area for Peri wants to use the washroom; in the meanwhile Ray gets coffee. Outside, just as they are about to leave, Peri says she can't find her compact, which she had with her when she went to the washroom with her mother. Joanne goes to the washroom to check and Ray checks under her seat. In the mess that is the backseat, Ray drops his coffee, but behind him, Peri has wandered off a little and finds herself face to face with a rabid dog.
Ray picks up a stone to get rid of the dog, but Peri loses her balance and falls off into the construction site, with her father diving in shortly afterward. Both of them fall to the ground and are woken up by a panicked Joanne.
The family rushes to the nearest hospital because it looks like Peri has fractured her arm. After a tedious process of getting her admitted in, the young girl must now go for a CT scan because her hand may be alright, but Dr. Berthram (Stephen Tobolowsky) is concerned that she might have hurt her head.
The last we see of Joanne and Peri are when they leave for the scan. Ray wakes up in the waiting area shortly afterwards. The hospital wouldn't let him visit his daughter and wife - they keep saying that he had come to the hospital alone and was never accompanied by anyone. Ray reiterates that his daughter was hurt when she fell off into the construction site and that his wife and he visited the hospital. Even doctors can't find a record of treating his daughter.
What follows next is a hunt for Ray's family. How can two people disappear without anyone seeing them? Ray is confident that he last saw his wife and daughter, the doctors had taken her to the lower level for the scan, but now they get in a psychiatrist who tells him that the brain makes up scenarios to protect itself from trauma.
Brad Anderson directs a creepy thriller of a man looking for his wife and daughter in a hospital whose staff looks suspicious. Cinematography by Björn Charpentier is sharp and twisted putting a mask on each character. Sam Worthington's Ray Monroe is difficult to read; it is also difficult to tell if it is because of his concussed character or his finite skill.
'Fractured' is, till the last minute, mystifying. The movie comes a full circle but long after you have walked away from the screen. That said, 'Fractured' puts a seemingly deranged man in a labyrinth and forces the audience into the same. Both of them wanting to leave.
'Fractured' is currently streaming on Netflix.