Breaking and Entering is a solid but
unspectacular drama with good performances.
Will is a London architect who lives with his
girlfriend, Liv, and her autistic daughter, Bea. When his new
office in Kings Cross is repeatedly burglarized, he stakes it
out and follows the thief. The thief turns out to be Miro, a
teenaged boy from Serbia who uses his free running skills to
commit crimes. Under false pretenses, Will befriends Miro's
widowed mother, Amira, and begins to fall in love with her.
Writer/director Anthony Minghella (The English
Patient, Cold Mountain) crafts his story into a solid drama
with good performances, but there's also a sense of it being
contrived and superficial, which prevents it from being a better
film. It feels like the resolutions of story lines are predetermined
and the characters are simply chess pieces being maneuvered
into place, with little sense of what motivates them to reach
those particular ends. It's not a fatal flaw because of Minghella's
assured direction of his cast. Cinematographer Benoît
Delhomme (The Proposition) uses naturalistic lighting
to capture the mood of a film largely set in a depressed urban
area. The score by Gabriel Yared (The English Patient, Cold
Mountain) and British electronic music duo Underworld is
good, and a moody Sigur Ros song plays over the end credits.
The cast is the strength of the film. Jude Law
as Will paints a believable picture of a man who seemingly has
everything he wants but still feels empty. Juliette Binoche
plays Amira as a mother who is willing to do anything to protect
her son, including denying her own happiness. Rafi Gavron is
convincing as a smart young man who lacks direction and gets
into trouble because of it. He also has good rapport with Binoche
and exhibits athletic talent in the free running scenes. Vera
Farmiga has a funny turn as a hooker who has philosophical discussions
with Law's character as he stakes out his office. Other good
performances come from Robin Wright Penn as Liv, Poppy Rogers
as Bea, Martin Freeman as Will's business partner, Ray Winstone
as the detective investigating the burglaries, and Caroline
Chikezie as a cleaning woman who likes Kafka.
Overall, a solid and respectable film, but not
good enough to demand a viewing at your local cinema. Wait for
the video release instead.
