Broken (2013)
Average Rating: 6/10
Reviews Counted: 50
Fresh: 31 | Rotten: 19
No consensus yet.
Average Rating: 5.5/10
Critic Reviews: 13
Fresh: 8 | Rotten: 5
No consensus yet.
liked it
Average Rating: 3.8/5
User Ratings: 2,197
Movie Info
The summer holidays have just begun and 11 year-old Skunk's afternoons are full of day dreams and curious wanderings around her neighborhood - with the exception that she must regularly give herself injections to combat her type 1 diabetes. When, one day, Skunk (Eloise Laurence) discovers her bitter and angry older neighbor, Mr. Oswald (Rory Kinnear), savagely beating Rick, a psychologically-troubled boy from the neighborhood whom Mr. Oswald's daughter has callously and fictitiously accused of
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Cast
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Tim Roth
Archie -
Eloise Laurence
Skunk -
Cillian Murphy
Mike -
Rory Kinnear
Mr. Oswald -
Bill Milner
Jed -
Zana Marjanovic
Kasia -
Robert Emms
Rick -
Rosalie Kosky-Hensma...
Susan -
Faye Daveney
Saskia -
Martha Bryant
Sunrise -
Denis Lawson
Mr. Buckley -
Clare Burt
Mrs. Buckley -
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Broken Trailer & Photos
All Critics (50) | Top Critics (13) | Fresh (31) | Rotten (19)
The comic and tragic elements are nicely balanced, and the three families' stories neatly and economically knit together.
Top CriticAlthough there are some light moments and traces of dark humor, Broken's overall aura is one of dread.
[It] drives its plot via an interesting and unusual character: the female victim who's actually a wholesale liar.
"Broken'' embraces the sort of unappealing British miserabilism perfected by "Ratcatcher" director Lynne Ramsay.
At a certain point, Mr. Norris forsakes realism for theatricalized fantasy, and "Broken" ultimately loses its stylistic cohesion, if not its humanity.
Norris has adapted Daniel Clay's young adult novel with a sensitivity that will appeal to teens and adults alike.
Broken simply can't get it together on any level, delivering a tedious drama, that for all the characters and over-emoting, doesn't have much to say.
A startlingly natural performance by Ms. Laurence, along with her superb supporting cast under the mostly spot-on direction by Norris, help make all the Sturm und Drang that occurs within 'Broken' extremely palatable.
If not for Laurence's bemused, slowly comprehending take on all the drama around her, "Broken" would seem to wallow in misery.
Broken is close to being a great little film.
An absorbing coming-of-age drama that suddenly, pointlessly self-destructs with an onslaught of cheap ironies and overkill.
While the third-act meltdown badly damages the movie, it doesn't erase the assured, preternatural confidence that first-time director Rufus Norris demonstrates before the material finally overwhelms him.
Doggedly manipulative and yet consistently affecting, Broken piles on the miserablism to almost unbearable effect.
An English coming-of-age tale with an appealing performance by Eloise Laurence as an 11-year old trying to make her way in a violent world.
It's the rare coming-of-age narrative that manages to respect the tricky ambiguities of shifting perceptions.
Attention: Book Discussion Groups. Have I got a book for you. And a movie beautifully adapted from it. Both are titled Broken.
Audience Reviews for Broken
Super Reviewer
Both my plot synopsis and the film's marketing would have you believe 'Broken' is yet another gritty urban British drama but this couldn't be further from the truth. For the most part, 'Broken' is charmingly upbeat, full of characters who are so damn nice you can't help but grin like an idiot while you watch them. Roth has called this his most difficult role as he's never been called on to play such an out and out nice guy before. Like 'Little Children' and 'Welcome to the Dollhouse', it focuses on how ill-equipped most of us are to deal with human relationships. You're never sure whether you want to give its characters a hug or a smack, but they're thoroughly engaging either way. What ultimately keeps 'Broken' from becoming a great film, rather than a merely good one, is an overly sentimental final act which hinges on an incident that's all too predictable.
While the entire ensemble deliver top-notch performances, it's Laurence who steals the show. Like Thomas Doret in last year's 'The Kid With a Bike', she delivers a genuinely child-like performance. Unlike many child actors, you never feel like you're just watching a miniature adult. She manages to evoke the character's intelligence without ever coming across as arrogant or unlikable. Mark O'Rowe's script helps of course. Viewing adult problems through a child's eyes could have been handled in a far more trite manner. If this were an American studio production (or even an indie like 'Beasts of the Southern Wild'), no doubt we'd have to endure an irritating voice-over in which Laurence tells us how she's so much cleverer than us grown-ups.
Like the best movies about childhood, 'Broken' asks plenty of questions but never has the arrogance to attempt to answer them.
Super Reviewer
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