Review of Fragile

Fragile (2005)
7/10
Frágiles
22 October 2010
Warning: Spoilers
Supernatural spookshow from director Jaume Balagueró has Calista Flockhart as a newly hired night nurse, Amy Nicholls, to a children's hospital in England, who discovers something sinister which lives on the abandoned second floor. The hospital is about to close it's doors and Amy is hired to help the staff prepare for the removal for the rest of the patients, among other duties, replacing another who could no longer cope with the "mechanical girl" the children go on and on about. Maggie(Yasmin Murphy)is an orphan patient with cystic fibrosis who informs Amy about Charlotte, the ghost that haunts the upper floor, and was deeply cared for by the nurse she replaced, Susan. Susan is returning to the hospital when her car crashes, killing her. The series of events, such as a little boy named Simon, suffering a double fracture, the cause not so easily explained, and a mysterious mishap when an elevator goes haywire, could be related to "the mechanical girl", and as Amy digs into Charlotte's past, she is convinced that Maggie and the other children will be in danger if they are not removed from the building, the premises, altogether. The hospital is coming apart, as fragile as Charlotte was in life, cracks in the crumbling walls when she is enraged, and her power can kill, paranormal activity quite present even if the other members of the staff try to deny her presence. As explained by Robert Marcus(Richard Roxburgh), the night doctor, Charlotte suffered from "brittle bone disease", osteogenesis imperfecta, and so this agonizing existence continues after her painful demise..and in her rage, she wants others to suffer as she did as well. With the simply gorgeous Elena Anaya as Amy's fellow nurse, Helen, Gemma Jones as Mrs. Folder, the hospital administrator, and Colin McFarlane as Roy, who is assisting in the moving of objects and personnel. Murphy is a doll and Flockhart imbues her character with a sense of tragedy and sadness, haunted by an incident from the past which motivates her to do whatever she can to help see that Maggie escapes the hospital unharmed. The ending literally has the hospital falling apart with Amy trying to guide Maggie out of the clutches of Charlotte as her volcanic anger ruptures the very foundation of the building, its walls and floors.
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