Poor Maria (India Eisley)!
Maria is a 17 year-old high school student in Canada. She goes to a school where everyone wears a uniform, everyone plays hockey, and everyone is looking forward to a prom that is going to be held on an ice skating rink! (Personal injury attorneys love this school!) Everyone is obsessed with living on the ice but Maria can’t even skate. Popular hockey player Mark (John C. MacDonald) taunts Maria for not being able to maintain her balance. Her best friend, Lily (Penelope Mitchell) offers to teach Maria how to skate but Lily turns out to be a cruel and taunting teacher, probably because she knows that Maria has a crush on her boyfriend, Sean (Harrison Gilbertson).
Maria’s life at home isn’t any better. Her mother, Amy (Mira Sorvino), is suffering from crippling depression and often can’t even be bothered to get out of bed or off the couch. Her father, Dan (Jason Isaacs), is a plastic surgeon who is obsessed with the idea that he can fix any flaw through surgery. He’s the type who cruelly critiques his daughter’s looks, despite the fact that Maria is actually a very pretty girl whenever she can find the courage to actually look up from the floor. Dan is also cheating on his wife. Perhaps the only good thing that Dan does is that he encourages Maria to stay home from school, though his reasoning is that she doesn’t look good on that particular day and she needs to get her “beauty sleep.”
Seriously, watching this movie, your heart truly breaks for Maria. It’s as if the whole world has been against her since the day she was born. Everyone gives Maria a hard time for not having more confidence but how can someone be confident when all they hear is about how much of a disappointment they are? Maria’s only friend is her reflection in the mirror.
At first, Maria freaks out when her reflection starts talking back to her. Airam, as Maria’s reflection calls herself, may look like Maria but she initially seems to have a totally different personality. Airam is confident in both her appearance and her sexuality. Airam is willing to strike back at the people that have hurt her. Airam is confident where Maria is insecure. When Maria talks to Airam, she ends up laughing so loudly that Amy actually comes into the bathroom and asks if Maria is smoking weed. After Maria is cruelly humiliated at prom, Maria agrees to switch places with Airam by kissing the mirror. Suddenly, Maria is the one in the mirror and Airam is the one who is in the real world, looking for revenge against everyone who has hurt Maria.
Or is she? Watching the film, I found myself wondering if Maria was just imagining talking to her reflection and perhaps “the switch” was all in Maria’s mind. Perhaps Airam isn’t some malevolent force that’s brought into the world as much as she’s just Maria having been pushed too far by the cruel taunts of her classmates and her father’s refusal to show her the consideration that he shows to his mistress. Airam is soon doing everything that Maria wishes she could do but when people start dying, Maria begs Airam to stop. Is Maria really trapped in the mirror and begging Airam to stop or is she just imagining a conversation with her own conscience? India Eisley’s performance keeps you guessing.
This is an intriguing film, even if is sometimes a bit too ambiguous for its own good. (The final shot is artfully done but it still made me want to throw something at the TV.) The film’s greatest asset is India Eisley, who is convincing whether she’s the mousy Maria or the bold Airam. Jason Isaacs, as well, gives a strong performance, turning his plastic surgeon into one of the all-time bad fathers. Watching Isaacs’s performance as Dan, it’s hard not to understand why Dan’s daughter would want to hide in a mirror.
Through the Shattered Lens 