User reviews

BREAKING AND ENTERING takes you inside the council housing of London and the rough edges of Kings Cross with a look at the difference in the relationships of a Bosnian Refugee and her son, in contrast to that of a London Architect and his partner, and her autistic daughter. When their paths meet through "breaking and entering" their stories collide in a film with solid performances from the cast.

Remembering the bombing of Kings Cross in 2005, and having lived in that area as a graduate student at London University, the film location was such an interesting match for the darkness of the characters, and their own issues and complexity. The shots of the Camden Locks, and the trees that dot the water, made the story come alive with watching Law and Binoche, and the son, Miro, each with their own problems to solve.

BREAKING AND ENTERING is a timely film as it shows the "melting pot" of London with its different races and refugees who have created a city of millions who have arrived in England to escape their past. And that is also the case of Robin Wright Penn's character and her daughter from Sweden. The characters journeys come to a conclusion which fits the theme of redemption and moving beyond the past. A very complex, but a satisfying film.

Will Francis (Jude Law) opens a new architecture office in the transitioning London neighborhood Kings Cross. He and his girlfriend Liv (Robin Wright Penn) are growing distant and her autistic daughter Bea is one of the reasons. Meanwhile Amira (Juliette Binoche) is worried about her son Miro (Rafi Gavron) slipping into criminal activity. They're from Bosnia and his father was killed during the war. Miro is teamed up with his cousin Zoran (Ed Westwick) in the family crime business. They break into Will's office to steal computers. Miro steals the valuable miniatures for his own artistic work and is given Will's personal computer as a reward. They rob the place a second time and Will's partner Sandy (Martin Freeman) almost runs into them. Detective Bruno Fella (Ray Winstone) investigates. Will and Sandy decide to stake out their own offices and encounter prostitute Oana (Vera Farmiga) working in the area. One night, Will catches Miro and follows him all the way home. Instead of directing the cops to the thieve, he starts a relationship with his mother.

This is written and directed by Anthony Minghella. I have no specific problems with the directions. It is all about the writing. It is overloaded with class warfare melodrama. Everybody has their own dramas. There is just too much. That's not to say there is nothing worthwhile. Binoche is amazing in this. If this is a simple movie about her and her son, this could be an award worthy performance. Again there are so many characters who each have their own drama. Minghella could easily cut out Sandy and Oana. Quite frankly, I couldn't care less about Will and his family drama either. The complicated melodrama is simply too complicated.

Like most of Minghella's films, 'Breaking and Entering' is visually very appealing. It has a very polished look but at the same time it portrays London in a very stark realistic way. The nightlife and daytime on the streets is well captured. Production design and art direction are fantastic. Delhomme's cinematography is wild. The frame and compositions are outstanding. Whether it's a wild red fox running through the streets or the sequence with Will chasing Miro, they have been skillfully executed. The rich score flows smoothly with the story.

'Breaking and Entering' can be viewed as a study of characters and their complex relationships. In the centre of the story we are introduced to Will (excellently played by Law) who's a stranger to his own long-term girlfriend and her daughter as a result of which he seeks affection elsewhere, Liv (played by a wonderful Penn) who's a depressed mother and lover, Amira (a mind-blowing Binoche) who's a widow struggling to make a living for herself and her son and Miro (by confidant newcomer Gafron) who's a teenager trying to support his mother by making quick money. In addition there are several interesting characters such as Bruno (played by a vivacious Ray Winstone) the chatty good-hearted CID, Sandy (a funny Martin Freeman) the friend who might have found the 'love of his life' and Oana the philosophical prostitute (by a brilliant and barely recognizable Vera Farmiga). All the actors do a solid job of bringing them to life.

Minghella also provides a light insight into the lives of immigrants and he does a good job of suggesting, in a subtle way, how life for immigrants living in England is different from that of Brits. He also cleverly shows how the actions of one character leads to having an influence on the lives of another character. The turn in their lives happens from the moment Will sees Miro trying to break in. Eventually it is shown how the character realize what is broken in their lives and what needs to be repaired. A lot of symbolism is used quite effectively, like the wandering fox referring to Will's loneliness and search.

Above all, 'Breaking and Entering' is Minghella's film and it's quite a change from his previous films which were set in different times (unlike the modern time period in this movie). It is this man who skillfully puts it all together. Even though sadly this great director is no more, his films will stay and 'Breaking and Entering' is just the right swansong.

"Breaking and Entering" is not a movie for everyone, if you don't like dramas avoid this one. This is an interesting movie, but it's not the kind of film that you wanna watch more than once.

The performances are good, specially the leading actor Jude Law as Will. I think this movie shouldn't have lasted 120 minutes, 105 would have been better, because there are parts that are a too slow. Here we can see how sometimes a couple who loved each other a lot once come to a point where they live in a tense way and sometimes the part who tries to resolve the problems and doesn't find the right answers look for love in other place at the first opportunity the chance appears.

The plot of the movie is about Will an architect who is going through a bad moment in his marriage and is being victim of robberies at his work by the teenager Miro and a group of thieves. For trying to resolve the mystery of the robberies Will is going to meet Miro's mother and he will evaluate how are the things in his own life................

Once upon a time, love meant never having to say you're sorry. In "Breaking and Entering," a fairy tale of a different order, love is apparently about nothing but. Sadly, all of those apologies don't make us feel any better. Maybe that's because, by the time the film ends, we're not quite sure they're heartfelt.

In yet another collaboration with director Anthony Minghella ("Cold Mountain," "The Talented Mr. Ripley"), Jude Law plays Will, an architect who, with his partner Sandy (Martin Freeman), has just set up shop in King's Cross, a London neighborhood that is on the cusp of being gentrified but which still is known for its high crime rate. Think crack, prostitution and, yes, burglary.

Naturally, the high-tech architectural firm gets burglarized -- several times -- by a gang of immigrants who employ teenaged boys of superior athletic ability to initiate the break ins. One of these boys, Miro (Rafi Gavron), is as fascinated by what he finds at the firm as he is proud of his ability to earn a living in nefarious ways. This, of course, becomes a pivotal plot point that -- not to give anything away -- anyone paying attention will spot the moment it appears on screen.

In an attempt to do what the police (and apparently an effective security system) can't, Will and Sandy stake out their space at night, initially as a team and then just by Will, who forms an unusual relationship with Oana, a local prostitute (played to perfect humorous pitch by Vera Farmiga).

Will's distraction nearly causes him to miss another robbery in progress. But at the last possible moment he gives chase to Miro, who he follows to an apartment in a housing project. It is disingenuous of Minghella, who also wrote the screenplay, to ask his audience to buy why, at this point, Will doesn't just call the police.

Maybe it's because Will recognizes that, once again, he can practice the same rescuer skills he employed with the two people he lives with, Liv (Robin Wright Penn), his common law wife, and Bea (Poppy Rogers), her functionally autistic daughter. Maybe it's because, this time, he'll be able to get it right.

Whatever the reason, Will is compelled to satisfy his curiosity about Miro by visiting the apartment where the teenager lives with his seamstress mother, Bosnian immigrant Amira (Juliette Binoche). What transpires between these two is to be expected from a pairing of two such good looking actors/characters who cannot possibly not be attracted to each other.

That Will behaves totally irresponsibly throughout all that ensues is grist for the mill. That Minghella thinks he can make it all okay by having Will utter a series of "I'm sorry's" that are the equivalent of kissing a boo-boo better is to underestimate everyone involved.

It is to the credit of this fine cast that they all manage to turn in creditable performances, especially Wright Penn, who manages to do so much with so little. Of all the actors, though, the ones who turn in the most outstanding performances are Gavron, Rogers and, of course, Farmiga. This is a season of finely-honed supporting performances, and "B&E" offers some excellent examples.

To emphasize these performances, however, is to overlook one of the more important "characters" in "B&E". Minghella's films, including the critically acclaimed and commercially successful "The English Patient," prove that the writer/director is adept at integrating landscape-as-character into his films, and "B&E" is no different. Indeed, without King's Cross, and the artistry with which it was photographed by Benoit Delhomme, the film has very little reason for being. It is all the more unfortunate, therefore, that the script is not more specific about the class problems at which it barely hints.

Perhaps there is an apology adequate for such an oversight (not to mention the very unsatisfying ending), but "I'm sorry" just isn't it.

There is a compelling need for redemption in Anthony Minghella's characters. The need itself is so blatantly human that sometimes, you have to look away. The plea of the characters is as diverse as it is identical. Don't ask me to explain, I may ruin the whole thought just by trying an intellectual explanation when in fact it only makes sense viscerally. Jude Law is back in top form and I for one want to cheer. He is extraordinary. Extraordinary! Juliette Binoche's Bosnian mom is another miracle of truth in her already magnificent gallery of truthful characters. Her son, played beautifully by Rafi Gavron doesn't allow us to take anything for granted. Robin Wright Penn's Liv is truly Bergmanesque and provides the perfect icy foil for Jude Law's longing. I came out of the theater drained and reinvigorated. That in itself is a huge recommendation.

It's a story full of metaphors. The title 'Breaking & Entering', in fact, captures and summarises all metaphorical scenes in this film: breaking an old relationship and entering a new one, breaking a window and entering a building, breaking a class boundary and entering a new middle ground. Even a construction site where the architect, starred by Jude Law, works symbolises a place composed of frequent breaking activities (knock down old buildings) and entering activities (constructing new buildings and entering a new space). The beautiful cinematography that often blurs a part of one scene, and the endless passing through a door are the other two significant symbols of 'breaking and entering' activities.

However, apart from the arty way of presenting the story, I was disappointed by the story. I reckon the story would be more gripping if the architect starred by Jude Law made a more definite decision - broke up with his wife/girlfriend and start a new relationship with a low class immigrant starred by Juliette Binoche. But on the other hand, if such a decision were made, the whole film probably lost its meaning and beauty of blurring and confusing after breaking and entering.

Jude Law and Juliette Binoche performed outstandingly while Robin Wright Penn did not really catch the role - she badly interpreted this middle class white woman who was a stressful mum uncertain about her relationship. I thought Nicole Kidman's role in Eyes Wide Shut would fit well if migrated to this film.

If I had to watch this movie again I think I would jab pencils in my eyes before it started. Extremely slow, pointless characters, sporadic plot, extremely illogical ending.

Don't waste your money on this movie.

Why do the reviews have to be so long? Why must my review be 10 lines long? I have typed my review and hope that my brief synopsis would assist other people, but now I have to type a few more lines. When I venture on IMDb.com, I do not want to read 15 paragraphs about a movie. I want to know if it is good, or if it is bad. My synopsis above states what most would like to see. Hopefully, someone will benefit from my short review.

The unexpected coming to alter what is already our daily routine. Doing something for one specific purpose without realizing that we are being lead by fate , I presume, to an existential cul-de-sac. This is the stuff that fairy tales are made off, also great drama, great comedy and all the natural ingredients of what is laughingly known as our daily existence. This is Minghella's most moving film to date - and that is saying something. His obsession with darkness hidden in his characters hearts is as universal a theme as unrequited love. Minghella loves his characters and the darker they are, the stronger the love. I didn't love Jude Law this much since Mr. Ripley and Juliette Binoche is heart breaking. Brilliant. I sat in silence after the film was over. Tears running down my face. It hadn't happened to me in many many years.

Breaking and Entering Anthony Minghella's latest work is as anomalous as it is rapture. The Academy Award winning director of "The English Patient" has brought brutal honesty of a different type of culture but I'm afraid the middle acts of the film leave the audience too disenchanted and by the final act when it finally does pick up, we are already lost in the quarrel of deceit and dialogue.

Minghella brings us the story of Will, (Jude Law) an architect who has just opened up his own company with his long time business partner Sandy (Martin Freeman). Unfortunately, they open up on a rough side of London and have a few "B & E's" before taking it upon themselves to sniff out the culprit. The culprit however, is a young fifteen year old boy, Miro (Rafi Gavron) who works for a gang of thugs who consists of his late father's side of the family. The acrobatic Miro must jump railings, rooftops, etc. in order to shake authorities but somehow finds himself intrigued by Will's architecture. When Will is not sniffing, he is distancing himself away from his long time girlfriend Liv (Robin Wright Penn) and her behaviorally challenged daughter Beatrice. The strain on their relationship has been ten years in the making with their unmarried lifestyle and soon to become familiar nature.

After many nights of sitting and having conversations with the local and extremely humorous prostitute, (Vera Farmiga) Will discovers his guilty party and pursues Miro all the way to his home. In Miro's home he lives with his hard-working and loving mother, Amira (Juliette Binoche) and Will's attraction is sparked immediately before even fathoming a mention of Miro. The two start a very involved and passionate love affair with Amira having no knowledge of Miro's extracurricular events.

Minghella does a fantastic job of wrapping us in the story from the premise of the film but somewhere in the ladder we are left on the side of the road in an unbalanced rising action. In its 120 minutes of running time, the audience meets and greets the characters; we are brought intimately with each of them and like Minghella's previous works, he introduces us with much dialogue but in this case it was not enough to suffice. While I admire the honesty, truth and expression of human weakness of the picture, I needed a little more to pull me along the story to keep me progressing.

As usual Gabriel Yared's score is evident and gives great conviction to each scene along with the beautiful camera work and editing and fortunately, the performances were sufficient enough to keep me intrigued in the story. Jude Law regrettably is "Dan" from "Closer" for a good duration of the film but rest assure by the final act he gives his best performance to date. Not entirely sure what happened the first 2/3 of the film but Law completely lost himself in "Will" for the resolution and emerged a true leading thespian. It is Law's final performance that saves the film from being ordinary to something a little more. I'm uncertain of his chances with the "Gold Man" because we've seen a Jude Law like this before and he's had excellent chemistry with Minghella as we saw in his previous nominated works. I suppose there's too much flaw in his armor to carry it all the way to battle.

Juliette Binoche has proved time and time again that she is a reliable actress to carry a film. As the refugee survivor "Amira," Binoche stretches out her legs to give us someone utterly heartbreaking and unlike what we've seen before. The admiration for "Amira" is in her strong and undying espousal for her son. Amira is determined to set her son straight on a path and you can't deny the love between them. It is in the intimate moments of laughing and kissing between the mother and son, that we find the emotional center of the tale. Minghella really deserves praise for directing and showing us one of the best mother-son moments of contemporary cinema. Binoche and Gavron are truly that good.

The standout and M.V.P. of the film is the no-less than perfect Robin Wright-Penn as Oscar's favorite lady; the suffering wife or in this case girlfriend. Wright has taken large steps in Indie films the past few years but she gives the Swedish and beautiful Liv, a sense of humanity that actresses like Winslet and Weisz can only pull off. "Liv" is an attentive mother, a loving girlfriend, but a woman with a tortured soul that by credits end you bring home with you. Despite some of her accent flaws, which came from time to time, Wright never leaves "Liv" unattended and gives the film the backbone needed to walk a very rough road. If there's any aspect of the film to nominate it is Robin Wright-Penn for charisma, zeal and dedication to a role that sounds formula-matic on paper but no formula in sight. There's much fondness in "Liv" and many women can relate to her character which is probably why she's so great.

As this was being touted as Minghella's best work to date, I might pass on that notion. We could see a worthy screenplay nomination and a much needed Maria Bello-like nomination for Robin Wright-Penn. (I'm telling you, it's that good) Other than that, nothing spectacular about the movie although it may appeal to crowds of Minghella stalkers and lovers but not to this critic.

Grade: **1/2/****

Set in London, one of planet Earth's most prosperous and important cities, the film presents a series of artificially sweetened events, set in motion by an office break-in carried out by a 15-year-old kid named Mirsad, a war refugee from Bosnia. Now based in London and straddling the line between lower middle class and poverty, he is cared for by his Muslim mother Amira who provides for both by working as a seamstress after his Serb father got murdered during the war.

The office space that he keeps breaking into belongs to an architectural firm owned by Englishmen Will Francis and his partner Sandy. Will is young, rich, and bored. He's also got a depressed Swedish-American girlfriend Liv along with her 13-year-old autistic daughter Bee to deal with at home.

Another one in a growing line of recent Kumbaya, global village cinematic offerings, B&E purports to explore a slew of additional themes (human relationships, single-parent / mixed-family tribulations, etc.). However, everything outside its general "people are people" running thread is a rather bland salad dressing. Unfortunately, the main course isn't a whole lot better, either. Among an almost alarmingly germinating number of these kinds of films springing up lately - "Crash" and "Babel" being the most prominent - B&E offers no substantial improvement. Much like those mediocre movies did, in a desperate search for relevance this one also resorts to dropping little bits of halfass global liberal politics at strategic points throughout the story.

Furthermore, on the dramaturgical and even aesthetic front, B&E lives and dies by the character of Amira. She is supposed to be the spice that elevates proceedings from the mundane and purely Western "I'm kinda bored and my woman's a crazy moody bitch so some exotic tail on the side would sure hit the spot" territory into something more hearty.

And while Binoche does a minimally adequate job portraying a Bosnian Muslim woman, giving the role to a South Slavic actress would've improved things substantially, and not just from the external authenticity standpoint. Apart from her annoying French "Bosnian accent" and her insufferable French-accented Serbo-Croatian, she plays this woman very unevenly. Not to mention that the way this entire character is written feels undercooked to begin with. At times it's as if they've taken Sena, a supportive wife from "When Father was Away on Business" (played by Mirjana Karanovic), applied a selective 21st century makeover, and built a new movie around her.

How does one choose a film to view? Often it is the subject matter - here the fraught relationship between landscape architect Will and both his partner of 10 years Liv (who has an autistic daughter) and his new lover Amira (who has a thieving son). Sometimes it is star - in the case, Jude Law who has to choose between his American partner who has an obsessive approach to parenthood (Robin Wright Penn) and his Bosnian refugee girlfriend who works as a seamstress (Juliette Binoche). Other times it is the director - on this occasion, Anthony Minghella who writes as well as directs as he returns to the north London milieu in which he located "Truly, Madly, Deeply".

All of these are reasonable reasons for wanting to see "Breaking and Entering", but I confess that it was the supporting French actress Juliette Binoche that drew me to the work. I've been in love with her ever since her first English-language appearance in "The Unbearable Lightness Of Being" in 1988. She is simply beautiful in a bewitching manner, while always convincing as an actress, especially in vulnerable roles.

This is a multi-layered work in which the title can be taken in three ways: the obvious sense with the robberies perpetrated by Amira's son Miro; the deeper sense with Will's emotional assault on Amira; and still another sense as the middle-class Will and his like invade the traditionally working-class area of Kings Cross.

Those who need car chases or special effects in their movie experiences should avoid Mighella's parable, but those who value thoughtful and nuanced works will find much to admire here.

Politely provocative slice of contemporary London falls short of aspirations but remains compelling enough to recommend as thoughtful entertainment. A sleek production helps punctuate these dramatic, intertwining narratives all revolving around the recent break-ins occurring at a brand new warehouse. Around this circumstance, competent writer/director Anthony Minghella weaves a little web of intrigue to help highlight the many insinuations this title bears. Exuding a sophistication the material cannot quite live up to, Breaking and Entering still remains a mature enough study into the psychology of adults to be met with class in the States.

Though it is a British film, Minghella knows how to mix his country's knack for depth with America's taste for more simplified, dumbed-down material to come up with a greatest common denominator of mainstream drama. With a sharp soundtrack, filming grimy nightlife around King's Cross through the seductive lens of Benoît Delhomme helps counter many of the scripts blemishes, which do come up more then one would hope. It is a script with more vague intentions then grave actualizations, only becoming thematically viable when a redemptive core gathers near the end.

Helping this literate soap opera along, an adept trio of star players breathe life into the film's many gray areas. Jude Law, Robin Wright Penn, and Juliette Binoche all sink their imaginary teeth into the emotional strain that surrounds an escalating connectivity. Law is one of Hollywood's most sensitive romantic lead actors, but his skills of perception still lack in the face of female counterparts, particularly Binoche in an assured take. Penn, also a great actress, plays more second or third fiddle in the narrative hierarchy, and despite relatively same amounts of screen time, feels under-utilized. For all it's structural and thematic annoyances, Breaking and Entering still proves that the popcorn is a helluva lot crunchier overseas.

I have seen this movie 3 times in as many years and while it is by no means a perfect movie it keeps drawing me back, so I guess that is some recommendation.

I think the thing that keeps me revisiting this movie is that I can't really believe the horribleness of the character played by Juliet Binoche. I keep thinking I must have missed something that justifies her actions, or that she must have some sort of redeeming feature. But no, every time I watch it I am disappointed, she is still the same horrible person. Here is a woman who will blackmail a man who truly loves her. Oh, but what about a mother's unconditional love for her son you say? What a load of rubbish. Perhaps this whole movie is about the concept of unconditional love, or in particular, a mother's love, which if the two examples given in this movie are anything to go by is a love that defies all common sense and morality. It seems that any action, no matter how despicable, is OK as long as you do it for your children. Apparently it makes you a great mother.

As many have noted Jude Law does a fantastic job as Will, although the part given him does make him appear somewhat limp. Juliet Binoche is adequate in her role and while she can be beautiful she is portrayed in this role as a somewhat dowdy woman, of no great physical beauty and with an unattractive personality. Sure, she has had a rough life, we get that, but it is difficult to see why Will falls for her at all, let alone so completely and so quickly. Her "personality", such that it is, vacillates between cool to Will and ridiculously over the top cloying with her son - do mothers and sons really act like that between themselves? Robin Wright Penn plays Will's girlfriend, yet another woman playing the "unconditional love of a mother" card. She plays her part well enough but as others have noted hers is not a character that generates much sympathy from the audience. The movie seems to imply that Will and Liv have only just started having problems with their relationship but it is almost impossible to believe that given the circumstances they would surely have split up years ago. Martin Freeman, as usual plays the only part he knows, that of Martin Freeman, with all the speech patterns and mannerisms for which we know and love him. It's as if he strolled onto the set during a break from shooting "The Office". Ray Winstone plays Ray Winstone in an impossible to believe role of the copper with a heart of gold who has nothing better to do than spend his whole life concerned about a single 15 year old boy and hanging around on scooters waiting for this boy to appear. Where can I get a job like this? His inclusion in the film is entirely pointless. The lad that plays the young thief is OK, but his is a strange role. On the one hand he is the central character who creates the raisin d'etre for the entire movie but on the other, as a person, his character is not really important.

Now that I have written this I think that what keeps me coming back to this movie is the empathy I have with the character of Will. It is hard not to feel sorry for Will. He is not a perfect person but he seems to me to be far too nice a person for the people he is exposed to, and he is treated like dirt for his troubles. I suppose it is the injustice of the whole thing I find compelling and which draws me to it and through it.

To summarise...you should definitely watch this movie. In spite of all the criticisms I have raised it is thought provoking and strangely compelling, and the performance by Jude Law deserves to be seen.

It's been 10 years since director Anthony Minghella worked with Juliette Binoche in The English Patient and 2 previous film (The Talented Mr Rpley and Cold Mountain) with Jude Law before the trio meet up again in Breaking and Entering.

Set in King's Cross, London, the drama surrounds Will (Law), an architect, Liv (Robin Wright Penn), Will's girlfriend and Amira (Binoche), a Bosnian Muslim immigrant who survived from the instability of Sarajevo, the hometown where she and her son Miro came from.

Miro and his friend broke into Will's workplace, and had everything stolen, including his personal notebook. Miro breaks into Will's workplace again and had everything stolen, but this time round, he left a DVD-ROM containing his personal data from his notebook.

While Will is facing an instability relationship with Liv and her autistic daughter Bea, he tracks down Miro, and discovered that Amira was the mother of Miro, and also the woman whom Will met earlier on. Using Amira's tailoring service as an excuse to investigate the break-in, soon he found love and sex on Amira, which eventually leaving everyone in a unfavorable, unfortunate and tragic situation.

Jude Law is once again reprising his similar role in Mike Nicholas's Closer, which was unfortunately a disappointment to the fan of Law who wish to see something new and different from him. Just like his previous role in Mr Ripley and Closer, Law is maintaining his image as a Casanova, which seems to have failed to appeal to his fans and reviewers.

Binoche, on the other hand, grabs the attention of the audience. While we have previously seen Audrey Tautou playing a Turkish chambermaid in Stephen Frear's Dirty Pretty Things, we now see another critically acclaimed French actress playing the role of Bosnian Muslim immigrant. She was a familiar face in French productions, with occasional appearance in Hollywood productions. Thus, it was fresh and new to see her playing a Bosnian immigrant, after she plays a French chocolate maker in Lasse Hallstrom's Chocolat, a US/UK production.

Minghella explores the another side of King's Cross in Breaking and Entering, where it brings the audience to see the vice and criminal side of King's Cross. While King's Cross was depicted as a place for vice, crimes and lowly immigrant living in the slums, the title also means another thing: Breaking and Entering into the lives of the opposite.

In the story, it began with Miro breaking into Will's workplace and had the workplace wiped out. In the end, he break into Amira's life and entered her personal life, which leads to emotional and monetary blackmail. Miro breaks into Will's life and Amira enters his life, which gave her a route for communication and exploration of her inner world.

Bea's autistic ism breaks the relationship between Will and Liv, where it put them on a test, with a consequence no one could imagine. The test tells us directly we are seeing some of the very real and familiar tensions and emotional breakdown in our daily life. While things could have been better, there are other issues that makes it a challenge to bring them back to pieces, just like how Liv trying to patch up a plate broken by Bea while having a quarrel with Will.

The film wraps up beautifully in the credits with Sigur Ros's Se Lest, which was a small treat for the audience after the story comes to an end. It soothes the ears, and the heart after the tension.

Minghella did not fail his fans in Breaking and Entering, which makes me expecting his upcoming production soon.

This is an example of Anthony Minghella pretending he is Stephen Poliakoff, and failing miserably. This film is straight from the false world of 'luvviedom', i.e. the imaginary world in which the luvvies of the film scene live in their bubble and try to remember what real people were when they once knew them. Minghella is so desperate to put some 'real people' into this phoney saga that he drags in some hapless Bosnian characters, though even they are not convincing, despite the best efforts of the ever-brilliant Juliette Binoche with her perfect Serbo-Croat accent and a superb first performance by the young Rafi Gavron as her son. This film is so contrived and idiotic in its attempts to be profound that it is a lesson in how not to write a script. Poliakoff can pull off these rambling associations of disparate characters who come together in ultimate profundity, because he has some magical ability to make it all mean something in the end, but Minghella simply cannot do it. He is too far away, on some planet of his own, and all his characters are merely theoretical, and so far from real that the result is a really horrible joke. Jude Law delivers another commanding performance, showing himself once again a master of the screen, while Vera Farmiga as a Russian prostitute brings the only other touch of life to this dead production with her hysterically funny and inspired cameo performance. The worst thing of all about the film is the cold, deathly, and repulsive Robin Wright Penn, who is not only unwatchable as an actress, but her character in the story is so despicable that one doesn't know which is worse, the actress or the part. This entire project was flawed from the start, and should never have passed go. If Minghella wants to commit professional suicide, this is the way to do it. He should meet some people in the real world fast, before he drowns in a cesspit of utterly gormless goo. What a ridiculous waste of time!

London is a very compartmentalised place and people get on by ignoring each other. However inner London in particular is also very crowded and gentrification has meant that the poor now rub shoulders with the rich. Will (Jude Law) and his partner (Martin Freeman – Tim from "The Office") are architects who has done very well out of redevelopment which Will sees as a campaign against green spaces – their current plans for the King's Cross area envisage lots of canals. They have even moved their own office to the area, but someone keeps on breaking in and stealing the computers (always Apple – a bit of product placement there).

Will, who wants to get out of his elegant Primrose Hill house anyway, stakes the place out and discovers that the burglar is a very athletic teenager. He follows the kid home to a housing estate in nearby St John's Wood and strikes up an acquaintance with the kid's seamstress mother. Mother Amira (Juliet Binochet) and son Miro(Rafi Gavron) are Bosnian refugees. Will is not terribly happy at home due to his strained relationship with his partner Liv (Robin Wright Penn) and her demanding daughter who is showing symptoms of autism. So he goes to bed with Amira, who sensibly arranges them to be photographed, though she doesn't know Will is on her son's case.

Without giving the game away, things are resolved, though it must be said not in a totally satisfying manner. There is also a rather pointless sub-plot involving a prostitute (nicely played by Vera Farmiga) who has coffee with Will and introduces him to Central European rock in the front seat of his Landrover while he is watching for burglars.

Clearly the film is about Will and Liv and their emotional life, and there is a wider theme about the rich mixing with the poor, but I'd have to say at the end I'm not much the wiser. However, I thought Jude Law turned in a terrific performance as Will, who's not sure if he knows what the truth is anymore. I saw Jude in "The Holiday" recently where he was basically sleepwalking (which was all his role demanded). Here he is really trying. Juliette Binoche, is also excellent as Amira, who makes it clear that, emotionally deprived as she is, motherhood is her first priority. Actually, Liv is the same, but poor Will doesn't notice.

Rafi Gavron makes a very impressive debut as Miro, who just may stay on the rails, and I liked Ray Winstone as an exemplary policeman dedicated to keeping kids out of trouble or at least out of jail. Oh, and Ellen Thomas, Liz the mendacious school secretary in "Teachers", pops up as a children's court judge chairing a bizarre community justice conferencing session.

Overall, an interesting film, but I'm still wondering what it was really about. It bombed at the box office here despite the presence of Jude Law, so perhaps I'm not the only one.

The main thing I learned from this vacuous turd of a movie is that Juliette Binoche makes a better Bosnian seamstress than Robin Wright does a Swedish documentary film-maker. I mean, the only thing we ever learn about her character is that she's Swedish, and the only thing Swedish about her is that people occasionally say she's Swedish. At least Juliette Binoche does some balkan style baking and serves Bosnian coffee.

Jude Law played his usual ever-so sensitive and troubled man who just can't keep it in his trousers but loves his wife really, a part which seems to come quite naturally to him but really gets up my nose.