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List Price: $19.95 | | Label: Weinstein Company
Salesrank: 19746
Released: May 8, 2007 |
| Our Price: $1.95 |
| Used Price: $1.19 |
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MPAA Rating: R (Restricted)
Media: DVD |
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Editorial Review:
(Drama) A sexy and steamy story about a disparate group of Londoners connected by a string of burglaries and a passionate affair.
Description of Breaking and Entering:
The atmospheric and erotically charged Breaking and Entering reunites director Anthony Minghella with Jude Law (The Talented Mr. Ripley, Cold Mountain) and the haunting Juliette Binoche (The English Patient, for which she and Minghella won Academy Awards). Law fully invests himself as pre-occupied landscape architect Will Francis, who with his partner (Martin Freeman from the original British version of The Office), is heading a gentrification project in London's seedy, crime-plagued King's Cross neighborhood. At home, he and Liv (Robin Penn Wright), his morose Swedish-American girlfriend of 10 years, are increasingly estranged over the demands of his job and of caring for Liv's autistic daughter, a 13-year-old aspiring gymnast. Will, hiding his identity, begins an affair with Amira (Binoche), the mother of a youth who has twice ransacked Will's office. Amira is a Bosnian refugee with a fierce survival streak that is not above blackmail when she learns who Will is. This is Minghella's first original screenplay since his little-known romantic gem Truly Madly Deeply. The dialogue has Woody Allen pretensions: A cleaning woman who comes under suspicion for the break-ins invokes Kafka. A prostitute (Vera Farmiga giving the film's liveliest performance) has a philosophical bent. Will himself ham-handedly explains how he much prefers metaphors to straightforward communication (he'd love this film's title). An art-house film with an A-list cast and wrenching performances, Breaking and Entering couldn't get arrested in theatres, but it is a fine addition to Crash and other liberal-minded "them and us" dramas. --Donald Liebenson
Breaking and Entering Reviews:
bad movie 
2009-07-20 - My biggest problem with this movie involves the script, which has too many characters who appear and disappear, and is far too long.
Secondly, the characters do not relate to one another in any meaningful way.
Jude Law and his wife are not connected. Jude Law and the boy's mother are equally unconnected. Jude Law, who appears to be a successful architect, never works, never has emotions, and is as drab as his boring wardrobe.
Only the minor characters actually show some humanity and distinction but they are too few and far between in a dismal movie.
Unbelievable Coupling
2008-08-13 - My and and I just didn't buy Jude Law and Robin Wright-Penn as a couple. Nor the supposed attraction and sexual tension between Law and Binoche. Of the three I think Wright-Penn stands out the most, followed by the girl who plays her daughter Bea. The other interesting part was the antics of the young man playing the agile monkey boy. I wouldn't watch this film again.
Didn't do it for me
2007-12-29 - It takes the first 45 minutes before some things starts to happen and then still it feels very stiffled. What came to mind watching this was the book "Unholy Hunger", as it displays very well the feeding happening in human relating on planet Earth. Everyone is feeding on somebody else; sometimes it is mutual feeding and at other times it is distinctly predatorial. Not a pretty sight.
Great idea....poor execution
2007-12-28 - Just because it's Anthony Minghella does not mean we forget what good film-making is all about.
The positives: I loved the shots of King's Cross, and I fondly remember the times I spent their in my student days (and all-nighters!) at The Scala Cinema. I liked the way the regeneration of this area was woven into the plot as a contrast to the crumbling relationship of Will and Liv. Binoche is great, and I loved the cameo by Juliet Stevenson who seemed very believable and low-key. The Kafka joke was a great line.
The negatives: Jude law was poor; he needs acting lessons to drag out of him what little acting talent he has. OK, he's a fashionable name but his acting is poor and he was simply not believable in this role. I know a fashionable name gets you investors which you need to make this kind of film, but it ultimately undermines the whole film if they seriously under-perform. There was no real depth. The plot held together shakily and was so full of cliches my groaning woke the neighbours: the tart with a heart; Serbian refugees as organized criminals; ice-cold (American) Swedish hottie etc etc.
The ending was just plain sad and unconvincing.
Shame really, the idea was great.
An over ambitious movie that falls flat.
2007-12-17 - Breaking and Entering, starring Jude Law, contains a meandering morass of a plot that involves the love of his life played by an emaciated Robin Wright-Penn, her slightly autistic daughter, a young Serbian boy who involves himself in thieving from Law's business, and the young boys mother-played by Binoche. Oh and a immigrant prostitute from Russia also makes an appearance for good measure.
If that sounds like a hodgepodge quagmire of characters- it's because it is. All of them tangle together quite nicely over Law, however, and the plot does make a bit of sense, I'll give it that- But never enough to make this a truly good film.
The movie starts with a ring of thieves that break into Will's (Law) architecture office set up in the slums of King's Cross, London. Will is into revitalizing the lesser parts of London, but, naturally all the locals see is an opportunity to make some illicit money.
The lynch pin of the ring is a young Serbian boy who's acrobatic skills enable him to launch himself into the building and turn off the security system- a system subverted by a delivery service who has the codes- so that the rest of the gang, headed up by his dubious uncle, can get in and ransack the place.
After this happens twice, Will and his business partner decide to stake out the place, until one night Will spots the boy then follows him home. For some unknown reason, Will holds off on officially reporting him to the law, and decides to check out the boys home under the guise of getting the boy's mom, Amira (Binoche), to do some work for him. (He met Amira once before by accident, but that's too much to explain right now.)
While in the apartment, Will sees evidence of the boy's misdeeds, but finds himself hopelessly drawn to Amira, despite the fact he's already in a long term relationship with Liv,(Wright-Penn).
But Will and Liv are having problems- she's shutting him out over the pressure of raising a child with special needs and he's desperate for "connection". A connection that he senses he can have with Amira.
Although initially ignorant of her son's connection to Will, the deception comes to light, as it naturally has too. But by that time, Amira's already falling for Will. When she decides to approach him on his deception, she instead takes him up on what he previously offered- the forgetfulness of sex. But she's got her own reasons for accepting the deal and I liked that twist quit a lot!
But here's the rub, what promises to be a steamy sexual encounter falls flat, even after the first hot and sticky kisses. And then ...Will goes back to Liv.
That's the other rub. Although I normally like to see redemption of a relationship in peril, the chemistry between Law & Binoche far outshines the on screen chemistry between him and Wright-Penn.
I was bothered by Wright-Penn's role too. Liv was depressed and frozen- which is really the part she was to play- but I just couldn't find much sympathy for her.
Unfortunately, this film felt more like Law's way to make up for his very public infidelities in real life rather than a look at the complexities of human relationships it was supposed to be.
In the end, the film just comes off as lifeless. Shame, considering the stellar cast and director.
