November 14, 2006
A good looking drama about fraught relationships in 21st century North London, Breaking and Entering is fascinating and solid in its first half, but collapses into interminably awful in its second.
Jude Law plays an architect called Will, who together with his business partner Sandy (Martin Freeman), relocates his business to Kings Cross in the hope of transforming the surrounding area. Will’s homelife is on the brink of collapse; his long term partner Liv (Robin Wright Penn) is tiring of his arrogance and emotional short sightedness and is increasingly cracking under the strain put upon her by her obsessive compulsive, borderline autistic daughter. Into this world of middle class angst stumbles Miro (Rafi Gavron), a teenager who was born in Sarajevo but brought up in London after fleeing the Balkan war with his mother Amira (Juliette Binoche). Working for a gang of thieves presided over by his uncle Vlado (Velibor Topic), Miro steals Will’s laptop from the company offices, setting in motion a series of events which culminates in Will and Amira embarking on an ambiguous amour fou.
After a slightly pretentious opening sequence involving a voice over from Law, Breaking and Entering quickly works itself up into a tight, funny, moving and involving drama. Although the central conceit of the plot is not without its problems (we are meant to see the two families as mirror images of each other, but this somehow often feels like the same story being told twice), there’s enough carefully thought out scenes and good dialogue to hold the attention. Cameo appearances by Ray Winstone and Juliette Stevenson (as sympathetic plain clothes cop and liberal psychologist respectively) are mostly successful, and there’s superb and witty interplay, especially in one scene between Will, Sandy, the office cleaner and a local hooker, and another in which Will berates his staff for accusing the cleaners of being behind the thefts.
Once the relationship between Will and Amira actually begins though, it all goes badly wrong: the plot becomes increasingly contrived, the social drama aspect of the film turns inauthentic and insulting, and the emoting degenerates into farce and melodrama. The dialogue, so rich and true to life (albeit a middle class movie idea of life) early in the film, gets bogged down in cod philosophising and lukewarm metaphor, and the way the film ties things up at the end is very difficult to take. Ultimately, it’s a blessing that Minghella knew how to cast: although Law (like the film) outstays his welcome before the end, thank god for Binoche and Penn: the former had me crying like a big girls blouse, and I never thought I’d see the latter give a performance of this strength and depth before now. By the end, you’re only really watching to see what miracle these two superb actresses can work with whatever silly situation or badly written line the script is surely bound to throw at them next.
Jude Law plays an architect called Will, who together with his business partner Sandy (Martin Freeman), relocates his business to Kings Cross in the hope of transforming the surrounding area. Will’s homelife is on the brink of collapse; his long term partner Liv (Robin Wright Penn) is tiring of his arrogance and emotional short sightedness and is increasingly cracking under the strain put upon her by her obsessive compulsive, borderline autistic daughter. Into this world of middle class angst stumbles Miro (Rafi Gavron), a teenager who was born in Sarajevo but brought up in London after fleeing the Balkan war with his mother Amira (Juliette Binoche). Working for a gang of thieves presided over by his uncle Vlado (Velibor Topic), Miro steals Will’s laptop from the company offices, setting in motion a series of events which culminates in Will and Amira embarking on an ambiguous amour fou.
After a slightly pretentious opening sequence involving a voice over from Law, Breaking and Entering quickly works itself up into a tight, funny, moving and involving drama. Although the central conceit of the plot is not without its problems (we are meant to see the two families as mirror images of each other, but this somehow often feels like the same story being told twice), there’s enough carefully thought out scenes and good dialogue to hold the attention. Cameo appearances by Ray Winstone and Juliette Stevenson (as sympathetic plain clothes cop and liberal psychologist respectively) are mostly successful, and there’s superb and witty interplay, especially in one scene between Will, Sandy, the office cleaner and a local hooker, and another in which Will berates his staff for accusing the cleaners of being behind the thefts.
Once the relationship between Will and Amira actually begins though, it all goes badly wrong: the plot becomes increasingly contrived, the social drama aspect of the film turns inauthentic and insulting, and the emoting degenerates into farce and melodrama. The dialogue, so rich and true to life (albeit a middle class movie idea of life) early in the film, gets bogged down in cod philosophising and lukewarm metaphor, and the way the film ties things up at the end is very difficult to take. Ultimately, it’s a blessing that Minghella knew how to cast: although Law (like the film) outstays his welcome before the end, thank god for Binoche and Penn: the former had me crying like a big girls blouse, and I never thought I’d see the latter give a performance of this strength and depth before now. By the end, you’re only really watching to see what miracle these two superb actresses can work with whatever silly situation or badly written line the script is surely bound to throw at them next.