Broken

So simple and yet so complicated, as often life can be. Normal houses and plain faces on your block often conceal mini dramas. A cul de sac, to be precise, symbolic perhaps of the impasse that certain characters in "Broken" have reached.

Hats off to the director (and editor?) for the way certain sequences were handled. You would see a scene - the conclusion of certain events - and at the right moment (when you'd start wondering "when and how did this happen?"), the action would rewind itself and everything would make sense. From effect to cause...

I guess this movie is not for the "Batman" crowd. No jumping off roofs, no wild chases, no gunshots, just bleeding. The real kind that could happen to your sister or brother or parent or child. Or to your neighbour. The kind that you might read about in the newspaper the next day. Bleeding external and bleeding internal. Of the lip and of the heart.

The acting was very convincing. Not the kind that sticks in your mind forever, but that's exactly what I consider to be one of the film's main assets: the lack of exaggeration in the delivery of the lines is what makes the story plausible, real, as if though you're witnessing events unfold outside your window.

And hats off to the new kid on the block. Eloise Laurence is a natural. I'd love to have her for my daughter too! Or sister. Or neighbour. I have a feeling we'll be hearing more from her. And from director Rufus Norris. The chain must not be broken.

'Broken' is a film about a young girl named skunk, her life is turned upside down after witnessing a violent incident happen to one of her neighbours. From then one things go from bad to worse amongst the neighbourhood and her own family.

This film is acting debut of Eloise Laurence who plays Skunk, she is faultless. She keeps Skunks emotions right on the edge of her sleeves which makes her performance more real. When you look at her you can't help but smile even when it's a serious scene, she is just so cute and so amazingly talented. I hope to see her more in the future.

Tim Roth plays Skunk's dad Archie. As always Tim is amazing, he really brings all the emotions a father would feel towards his daughter and puts it into his performance and let's face it, who wouldn't want Tim Roth as their on-screen father? Cillian Murphy plays Mike, the boyfriend of their au pair Kasia, he also becomes Skunk's teacher. Murphy plays Mike as the most loyal/devoted boyfriend who anyone would want, Which makes him a really likable character and even comes to Skunk's rescue which I think any girl would want. You really feel for him when things turn upside down on him, and want to reach out a give him a hug. Plus he keeps is Irish accent for this one! 'Broken' is a film full of emotions, be them happy, sad, anger or love. This film is an emotional roller-coaster ride with some brilliant actors and some wonderful singing from the lead lady herself.

Review: What an emotional movie which has something for everyone. It's extremely well written and the characters all put in emotional and very true to life performance. The storyline doesn't hold up right from the start, and the audience cant help feeling for all the 3 families, and teacher, who are going through there own personal problems. The connection to all of the 3 families and the teacher is Skunk, who was played well by Eloise Laurence. I know that this movie was done on a budget, but the movie is top class and its a shame that a lot of people will miss this film because it isn't a major blockbuster. great Movie!

Round-Up: If anyone reads my reviews, please rent this movie because you won't be disappointed. The director cleverly gives you the shock value right from the beginning and then he shows different situations from all of the 3 families points of view, which was put together extremely well. The other thing that surprised me was that it really isn't predictable and its one of those movies where it takes you some time to get out of that zone, once the film has finished. I'm glad that the director was able to get some quality actors to portray his view of the script because of the budget. A must watch!

I recommend this movie to people who like there emotional dramas about the relationship between 3 individual families. 8/10

Eloise Laurence, in her motion picture debut, is really terrific as Skunk, aka Emily Cunningham, in this extremely dark British drama. Tim Roth gives his usual very solid performance as Skunk's father Archie, a lawyer who is left to raise Skunk and her brother Jed (Bill Milner) after Archie's wife has run off with an accountant. They're aided by a live-in nanny Kosia, ably portrayed by Zana Marjanovic.

Skunk is an 11 year old girl who must face numerous challenges in addition to the loss of her mother. She's a Type 1 diabetic, who must take daily injections and constantly monitor her blood sugar levels. She also has to contend with a new school and the bullying therein, a crush on her teacher Mr. Kiernan, played by the fine actor Cillian Murphy, as well as a first boyfriend Dillon (George Sargeant) and a first real kiss.

However, even more scary and potentially more dangerous are her neighbors. There's the rageful and violent neighbor Bob Oswald, believably portrayed by Rory Kinnear, who along with his three out of control daughters are causing havoc in the neighborhood. There's also the seriously mentally disturbed Rick (Robert Emms), living across the street with his doting mother and overwhelmed father.

All of these families and characters will eventually come together in brutally stark ways. The film does little to shield the viewer from very bleak and difficult scenes.

Thank goodness for the movie's powerful ending or I may just have felt the whole film was just too depressing and unflinching for me.

All in all, Eloise Laurence's riveting presence on screen was I think the true heart of the film. Most likely this film is not for everyone with its' heavy themes, but with its' very strong ending I was glad I stayed with it.

The film was directed by Rufus Norris, an accomplished stage director but making his film debut here. It was written by Mark O'Rowe (Boy A), based on the novel by Daniel Clay.

To borrow a line from my review of last year's heartbreaking film, The Hunt (Jagten), sometimes children lie. Sometimes they are simple, instinctive lies; sometimes they are calculated as an easy escape from a truth that may have dark consequences and sometimes lives are broken as a result.

When 11-year old Skunk (Eloise Laurence in her film debut) witnesses a swift but brutal attack in the quiet avenue where she lives, a series of violent events, both physical and emotional, ensues that has a devastating impact on three families.

The three families, each dysfunctional in their own ways, would not ordinarily have anything in common and would not be drawn to one another, but we see them confined in a small cul-de-sac like trapped, wild animals thrown into the same cage and each missing some of the essentials for an equanimous life. In a strange way, this could be a suburban take on Life of Pi with a young girl trying to make sense of a mad world. The tragedy is circumstance, but that's no excuse for the way some of the neighbours enact their lives, escalating lies and compounding mistakes.

But though all sounds bleak, Broken is occasionally beautiful, frequently touching and often funny and, again, it is all these things because it is so real. Watching Skunk and her brother, Jed (Bill Milner, Will from Son of Rambow), wrestling, clipping clothes pegs to each other and hanging out in their camp, brings back memories of childhood when the world seemed against us but there was always an escape to a bright, fantasy existence.

The humour comes not from cheesy asides or self-conscious jokes but from delightfully extraneous happenings on the periphery: the crashing descent of a car in a breakers yard, a boy dancing alone in a car park and a pair of twins with poo in a slingshot… That director Rufus Norris (another debut) has paid such care to the incidentals makes Broken a more complete film.

His choice of music is fantastically inelegant. Forget the whimsy of Rachel Portman (Chocolat) or the rousing scores of John Williams (do you really need me to tell you?), what carries Broken is close to the demo tune on a 1980s Cassio keyboard with Rolf Harris twanging along on a Jew's harp. And if that isn't sufficient to lighten the mood, as characters on the screen struggle to make sense of the dark craziness of life, along pops a song to celebrate the bizarre madness of it and we are permitted to laugh as the singer intones 'One day when I'm really old, and my hair falls out, I'll stick it back with the spoon of the marmalade that you made…' It's rare that I mention the editing but Victoria Boydell has sensitively cut a story to match the patterns of our minds. Occasionally we jump forwards by minutes as if reading an exciting novel, our eyes sprinting ahead until our brain slows us down, then seamlessly we step back to see in everything fully and in order.

Norris has cast Broken faultlessly. The star name upon which it's sold is Tim Roth as Archie, Skunk's dad, a single parent who is the calm, reasonable father in the middle of a minor battlefield. It's unfathomable, watching him here, that he isn't a bigger star. Archie is clearly a man with great pressure in an unenviable situation but he doesn't simply make the best of it, he endeavours to make it the best it can be. It is a wonderful, understated performance that I suspect few will see.

Laurence is a revelation and the emotional fullness with which she inhabits Skunk allows us to root for her and silently admonish her, because she could easily be the girl next door.

There isn't a poor performance in Broken, only characters you care for and those from whom you'd run a mile. Rory Kinnear (son of Roy) as Bob, gives us a man who is, on the face of it, the neighbor from hell with a trio of daughters to match but he's no two-dimensional villain, rather a damaged man with his own daemons he is unable to cope with. In contrast, Kasia (Zana Marjanovich), the friend who lives with Archie as a cross between friend, auntie and surrogate mother, brings a gentle, caring irreverence in the midst of the turmoil but she, too, has her 'edge.' Robert Emms, so often an invisible supporting actor, is breath-drawingly good as the mentally ill, victimized Rick who struggles to cope with the various warzones into which he is cast. He is the hate-figure of Bob and his daughters, the cause of weariness and frustration in his parents (superb turns from Dennis Lawson & Clare Burt) and, more than anything, the terrifying confusion in his mind. His character evolution is superb and our own feelings towards him are as confused as his own.

Once the credits had rolled, I sat in silence and reflected on how life runs away from us and we are subject to its whims. Sometimes we emerge the beneficiaries, sometimes the victims. Perhaps this is simple karma; perhaps it is fatalism. Or maybe everything is random or even the result of misunderstandings and the inability of mere humans to communicate their feelings openly, simply and honestly.

Broken asks the questions but leaves us to draw our own conclusions.

Sometimes 'broken' may be repaired. But not always.

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