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Breaking and Entering (2007)
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Reviews Counted:121
Fresh:41
Rotten:80
Average Rating:5.2/10
Consensus: This class warfare drama feels contrived and superficial: characters don’t act logically as the movie manipulates them towards deconstructing various social issues.
Theatrical Release:Dec 15, 2006 Limited
Box Office: $880,510
Synopsis: BREAKING AND ENTERING may lack the quality and scope of Anthony Minghella's previous work such as THE ENGLISH PATIENT and COLD MOUNTAIN, but it's an interesting, character-driven drama. Jude Law... BREAKING AND ENTERING may lack the quality and scope of Anthony Minghella's previous work such as THE ENGLISH PATIENT and COLD MOUNTAIN, but it's an interesting, character-driven drama. Jude Law (CLOSER) plays Will, a landscape architect who succeeds in business but finds his personal life is tougher to navigate. He has been with Liv (Robin Wright Penn, FORREST GUMP) for years, but it's difficult to connect with her due to her worry over her teenage daughter. When Will catches a teenage boy named Miro (Ravi Gafron) breaking into his office, he chases the thief home. He later meets the boy's mother, a Bosnian refugee played by Juliette Binoche (CHOCOLAT). His anger at Miro is quickly transformed into attraction to his mother, further complicating his relationship with Liv. This is Law's third teaming with Minghella (after THE TALENTED MR. RIPLEY and COLD MOUNTAIN), and their partnership rewards the audience with a typically good performance from the actor. Wright Penn and Binoche also display the talent people have come to expect, but it's the supporting cast that shines here. As Will's business partner, Sandy, Martin Freeman plays second fiddle to Law, but he possesses a similar charm as his character on THE OFFICE. As a persistent prostitute, Vera Farmiga (THE DEPARTED) is one of the movie's highlights, providing laughter in what is largely a very bleak film. Gavron is a capable young actor as Miro, but his performance is most astonishing for his skills at the sport of parkour, a kind of urban acrobatics on display throughout the film. If only these characters were half as adept at life and relationships as Gavron is at leaping from building to building.... [More]
Starring: Jude Law, Juliette Binoche, Robin Wright Penn, Martin Freeman
Starring: Jude Law, Juliette Binoche, Robin Wright Penn, Martin Freeman, Ray Winstone, Vera Farmiga, Rafi Gavron, Poppy Rogers
Director: Anthony Minghella
Director: Anthony Minghella
Producer: Timothy Bricknell
Composer: Gabriel Yared
Studio: MGM
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Reviews for Breaking and Entering
Full of interesting characters, intelligently conceived scenes and funny lines...
Breaking and Entering is an intelligent movie with a great supporting cast -- virtues that prove to be its undoing.
For all its Bergmanesque agonizing, the film never digs too far under the surface. It fails to break and enter.
A close-up of two disparate families in current-day London, Breaking and Entering lacks the heart and emotional warmth needed to tell the story of betrayal and its effects on loved ones.
Breaking and Entering piqued my curiosity but failed to deliver the emotional wallop I expected.
With its overwritten, every-hair-in-place script, Breaking and Entering robs itself of reality.
Minghella raises some interesting questions on the subject of exile — whether from one's country, family, ethnic identity or self. But his conclusions feel pious and pat.
Makes the mistake of cluttering the screen and the story. They run out of time because of the filler, so the emotions are rushed to the extremes.
Since the movie is about mending class differences, Minghella manufactures a hopeful ending that wants to have it all--just as he wants his London to have it all--but which instead only rings false.
The first third of the movie is intelligent and sets up an intriguing premise. Then the plot takes unconvincing and unlikely turns that result in an ending that feels false and forced.
[Minghella's] need to meticulously control every situation, to so perfectly intertwine the lives of every character and to tie up every loose thread creates a degree of contrivance so unrealistic that the fine performances of the cast are muted.
Seeing the film is like attending a refined cocktail party where social problems are clucked over and personal tensions are politely disregarded. When it's over, you wish you'd gone to a bar where people know how to have an argument and throw a punch.
Many talented directors have a Breaking and Entering in them, and some -- like Anthony Minghella -- have the misfortune of being successful enough to have it green-lit.
Latest News for Breaking and Entering
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English filmmaker Anthony Minghella had a sparse but critically acclaimed career by the time of his passing today at the age of 54. We turn to the six films Minghella directed,... More...
March 18, 2008:
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