The
Weinstein Co./Miramax Films/MGM
A Mirage Enterprises production
Screenwriter / Director: Anthony Minghella
Producers: Sydney Pollack, Anthony Minghella, Timothy Bricknell
Executive producers: Bob Weinstein, Harvey Weinstein, Colin Vaines
Director of photography: Benoit Delhomme
Production designer: Alex McDowell
Costume designer: Natalie Ward
Music: Gabriel Yared, Underworld
Editor: Lisa Gunning
Will Francis: Jude Law
Amira: Juliette Binoche
Liv: Robin Wright Penn
Miro: Rafi Gavron
Bea: Poppy Rogers
Sandy: Martin Freeman
Oana: Vera Farmiga
Bruno: Ray Winstone
All photos: ©The Weinstein Company, 2006/Laurie Sparham
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Possibly—prerequisites: anglophile, love Jude Law’s face, want to see Juliette Binoche doing her thing, and especially admire the environs depicted of this London of gray, somber skies, rain soaked streets of a lower class neighborhood.
Take your children?
Teenagers, again for the conversation possibilities...the R rating is misleading, as the bedroom scene is discreet by today’s standards.
Sometimes, often, a character in a movie is the location itself. For Breaking and Entering, the location was the movie’s main protagonist and antagonist, Jude Law the leading man, Juliette Binoche, shared the leading woman’s roll with Robin Wright Penn—and young actors Rafi Gavron and Vera Farmiga stole any scene in which they had even a minor part. London, specifically the King’s Cross district, was captured nicely by DP Benoit Delhomme, guided by Minghella’s loving scripting of his main character. It gives a sweeping look at the district, without most of the political struggles going on in the heady reaches of mutil-billion dollar companies and possibly corrupt politicians colluding to work their magic on London’s King’s Cross district, shared by Islington and Camden political councils, who hold sway over this ‘heritage’ district.
Director and Screenplay Writer Anthony Minghella takes a look at his location
Admittedly, I had not a good deal of awareness of the King’s Cross of today’s London before this movie...it sounded interesting. I had no idea it had deteriorated to an area considered ‘rough’, let alone a nearly lost cause. Apparently the powers that be are seeking ‘regeneration’, an urban trigger word for either renovation, or demolition and replacement. For an identified (and very real) ‘King’s Cross Central’ project, the latter approach will result in clearing the slate clean of an impressively long list of old buildings, and creating a center for opportunity. “King’s Cross Central is a 67 acre ‘brownfield’ opportunity site situated between, and to the north of, King’s Cross and St Pancras Stations.”
Currently underway, and projected to complete between 2010 and 2012, this center is hoped to provide “...significant benefits...” to stave off the ”...problems and uncertainties that have blighted this site in the recent past”. That’s the British for Yuk; let’s roll up our sleeves. “Over 40% of the site area would be public realm, with 3 new parks, 5 squares and 20 streets, including new ‘home zones’.” Read displacement of a lower class segment of the population—and huge opportunities for big companies (specifically Argent) and architects with dreams. As there is always another side to every news story, one can guess there is plenty of opposition from locals. They are on the Internet, and can be found under their ‘Think Again’ campaign opposing the Argent version of their future.
Also, the King’s Cross St Pancras train station is one of the busiest in London, especially with the added load of the Channel Tunnel passenger transfers. The station itself is undergoing renovations, to be completed by 2011. There is a lot brewing in King’s Cross, besides an influx of immigrants and neighborhood malaise. Native to London, Minghella plays with this real world ‘crime’ as a basis for Breaking and Entering.
This ‘Sea of troubles’ serves as the primary metaphor in a script full of metaphorical characters and actions. Minghella managed to convey some of the largesse, and somewhat grandiose plans for the area, by having one of the human characters give a stylish PowerPoint presentation of glorious ‘greenscape’ solutions. Minghella’s story had these guys feeling so strongly about the project, they relocated their company offices to King’s Cross. Bad idea, said most. However, move they did, and were ripe for the picking. The offices were burgled twice in so many moments.
Jude Law and Juliette Binoche
These crimes were then compounded by the reactions to them by the firm’s architect, Will Francis (Law). He lives in cushy North London with his life partner of ten years, Liv (Wright Penn) and her daughter Bea (Poppy Rogers). Bea’s emotionally challenged aberrations, such as gymnastics practice in her room at 3:00 AM caused them to seek counseling. Solution: possible high functioning autism—therapy recommended. Will was a man you could be concerned about, loving to his mate, and her daughter, caring, thoughtful. He may or may not be up to the challenge, as Liv was a woman of fire and ice, with ice being the part he most often encountered of late. Things are loud, distasteful and tough in cushy North London, which puts him on his path to crimes of the heart. He does a grand bit of acting, as always. And...Law does such at great job of looking contemplative, hurt or doing a pout.
His personal laptop, apparently kept on his desk, not in his briefcase, was part of the high tech booty. With his ‘whole life on it’, I found that contrivance highly unlikely. There it was, though, necessary, as it’s loss puts him on a foolhardy path of amateur sleuthing, petulant surveillance duty, and ultimately right to the door of ‘the other woman’. She was Bosnian refugee Amira (Binoche, our lovely French actress crossover into mainstream acting rolls). Her character, Amira, made ends meet as a cottage industry tailor, supporting her son Miro (Rafi Gavron). Miro spent more of his time contributing his acrobatic talents to a highly organized group of refugees innovatively running a top-dollar theft-ring than he did to the arbitrary requirements of High School.
Other triangles and mismatches include Will’s business partner Sandy (Martin Freeman) who had a thing for the Jamaican cleaning crew’s manager, Erika (charismatic Caroline Chikezie), who was sure she was considered the likely source of the security system code for the thieves. Oana (played in a casually seductive manner by Vera Farmiga) had nothing better to do than bug Will in some random scenes. The vice detectives depicted are one compassionate bunch—which strains the story credibility again. Lead detective Bruno Fella (Ray Winstone brought heft to this rather minor role), had a soft spot for Miro, who he was sure was not the usual street kid, and just didn’t want him to end up in prison.
The encounters of the cultures and classes in this aspiring-to-epic story are ambitious. The love triangle, the would-be lovers, the thieves, the police, the minor character’s interests, they all meander and stumble. As this is mostly what people actually do, it doesn’t feel all that clumsy. Minghella does an admirable job of catching this type of musing and confusion of everyday life. I really (really) liked his early nineties Truly Madly Deeply, and so was a bit disappointed initially with the darker complexities presented in this film, his first real film entry since then. The metaphors began to work as the story progressed however, and I began to care how the whole mess was going to turn out. I was OK with his rather hurried (and harried) resolutions.
