Dir. Anthony Minghella, UK/US, 2006, 119 mins
Cast: Jude Law, Juliette Binoche, Robin Wright Penn
Review by Carol Allen
As one would expect from Minghella, directing his first original self-penned screenplay since Truly Madly Deeply, this is an intelligent, thought provoking and grown up film with an original and unusual story.
Set in the urban regeneration area of Kings Cross, Law plays Will Shaw, who runs a flourishing architecture firm with his friend Sandy (Martin Freeman). He lives in a beautiful house on the banks of the Regent's Canal with his partner Liv (Penn Wright) and her 13 year old autistic daughter, Bea (Poppy Roger). But life is not all honey. His relationship with Liv is cracking under the strain of Bea's behaviour and his lovely office with its state of the art computer equipment is subject to constant break ins. One night Will witnesses one of the burglaries, which are being carried out by a gang of Bosnian boys and follows one of them, Miro (Rafi Gavron), to the barrack-like estate, where he lives with his mother Amira (Binoche). Hoping initially to find out more about the burglaries, Will befriends her. It is a friendship which turns into an affair and which then takes an unexpected turn.
It would be easy to resent Will and his super privileged lifestyle, but Law and Minghella manage to make us empathise with his situation and problems. This is a well acted movie throughout. Binoche is very moving and has the courage to allow her normally beautiful self to look worn and plain when required. Rogers as Bea is appropriately maddening, filling me with admiration for any parent with the patience to cope with an autistic child and Freeman is particularly convincing as the conventional Sandy. He is one of those actors who is always present in the moment and listening to what is going on. Ray Winstone plays an unusually broadminded policeman for a movie cop, while Vera Farmiga gives a sharp performance as the Bosnian prostitute and newcomer Gavron is not only an appealing young actor but does some impressive gymnastics and parcour roof running in the burglary sequences. The London locations are also particularly well used.
The film could be criticised for trying to cram in too many different themes - the problems of intimate relationships, prejudice against people who are different from ourselves, juvenile crime, autism, the social effects of our "haves and have nots", divided society, etc, etc. And at times I found Liv and Will’s seemingly endless discussions about their relationship were getting a bit literary and long drawn out. Minghella also appears to be straining a little with the ending of his tale, in order to make his philosophical point that is the pun of the title, that by breaking and entering into someone's life you can mend and heal as well as destroy. Overall, however, it is a convincing and engrossing piece of work about recognisably real human beings.
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