"Fragments" gives us Alex (Connor Jessup), a fed up boy who works as a lion mascot and dates an open minded nice girl who feels the urge to encourage her boyfriend to explore his sexuality with another guy - she senses some gay vibe coming from him and she's totally okay with that. Fate or coincidence, but comes a hypochondriac guy who ironically is going to med school (Douglas Smith) of whom Alex randomly befriends. In between those three characters, there's talks about love, music, sexual double-standards and life.
Stéphanie Anne Weber Biron's short film balances drama and humor with fine and special quality, acted by outstanding young actors (we're hearing a lot about Smith lately) and their characters seem to extract a piece of life that is quite rare these days. Lovely and full of charm, it's difficult to resist to its appeal and honesty. However, Biron needed to find her own voice and her compositions in order to extract something better. She is best known as cinematographer of Xavier Dolan's earlier films and somehow for the most part of the film I've found myself thinking that this was one of his projects, not just the way it was photographed but mostly some stylistic choices, themes and it just loses part of its charm and curiosity because the real author isn't showing her stripes. Not saying it's a copy from Dolan but it genuinely feels like his works though less expanded.
But like many good short films out there, "Fragments" is one of those kind of projects that you truly wish would become a feature film, with further developments, twists and longer running time, obviously. It's inspired, special, very positive and beautiful. 8/10
