Cassavetes supplies no easy answers or easy laughs, forgoing romantic-comedy beats in respect for Nora's desperation. Call this confection a romantic-dramedy with humor on wry.
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07/20/07
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Broken English (2007)
65
%
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Reviews Counted:72
Fresh:47
Rotten:25
Average Rating:6.3/10
Consensus: Though Broken English eventually settles into basic rom-com territory, it’s pleasant and good-natured, and Parker Posey is spellbinding throughout the movie.
Theatrical Release:2007
Box Office: $818,674
Synopsis: Known mainly for playing quirkily comic characters, Parker Posey shows she can tackle a serious role just as skillfully in Zoe Cassevetes's moving film. BROKEN ENGLISH stars Posey as Nora Wilder, a... [More]
Starring: Parker Posey, Melvil Poupaud, Drea de Matteo, Gena Rowlands
Director: Zoe Cassavetes
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Reviews for Broken English
Top CriticIt's pretty clear where this is going from the first frame, though Posey's performance does keep you interested.
07/20/07
Broken English establishes a sympathetic character, gets Parker Posey to make her real, and then grinds her in the gears of a plot we cannot believe.
07/20/07
Top Critic[Cassavetes] treats cliches as fodder for comedy and nuances as the mainstays of a deeper, more beguiling sexual humor. What's engaging about this movie is that all the conventional trysts become low-key nightmare farce.
07/20/07
Parker Posey is one of those rare performers who can elevate a mediocre film into a good one and a good one into a great one simply by the sheer force of her personality.
07/19/07
A promising first film with moments exceeding that promise.
07/19/07
Top CriticA welcome chance to see Posey at her flighty, edgy best. Is there an actress alive better able to convey the neuroses and self-doubts of the typical over-educated, under-challenged American woman?
07/19/07
Dares to not wear its heart on its sleeve but expose it crouching in the corner, trying to learn the difference between searching for love and hunting for it.
07/19/07
"Broken English" is a mature romantic comedy that shamelessly digs into a zeitgeist of American female neurosis. It's the best thing Parker Posey has done in years, and more than makes up for her participation in Hal Hartley's recent train wreck "Fay Grim
07/17/07
This is a very uneven effort, it lost me a couple of times, but then I got back into it due to the performances, the understated directing and the writing.
07/16/07
Top CriticBROKEN ENGLISH isn't a complete washout and Cassavetes does show potential. I had the feeling that like her heroine, she was struggling to find her own voice.
07/14/07
Posey's comedic performances have always had a nervous vulnerability to them; here, she strips away just enough of the comedy to break our hearts.
07/13/07
...there's a resolutely indie spirit at work here that keeps things interesting even when they shouldn't be.
07/13/07
...there are reasons to catch Broken English, chief among them Posey's winning performance as a woman unsure whether to trust her romantic instincts.
07/13/07
Scenes often rely too much on talk rather than on visual solutions, although there's a languid seductiveness to the film's pace...Still, this movie belongs to Posey, and her nuanced performance makes Broken English a worthy adventure.
07/13/07
The fence-straddling would be fatal if it weren’t for Posey, who takes what’s essentially a character sketch and turns it into a three-dimensional mess in a dress.
07/13/07
Although it's conventionally filmed and rather flat looking, the first dramatic feature written and directed by Zoe Cassavetes displays a good deal of her father John's appreciation for unembellished honesty.
07/12/07
Both admirably and frustratingly low-key.
07/12/07
Posey does what she can -- her distinctive style is always worth watching, even when her character has a trust fund and whines a lot -- but she has too big of a mountain to climb: writer/director Zoe Cassavetes' listless script and tedious direction.
07/12/07
As a director, Cassavetes is a keen observer of character and social interaction.
07/12/07
Top CriticLatest News for Broken English
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July 07, 2007:
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June 21, 2007:
The quirky female friendship between the irresistible combo of Parker Posey and Drea de Matteo oddly upstages the designated romance in the movie.
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