Reflexos

"The Brøken" does have its moments. The atmosphere is eerie throughout. The stage design is sparse and somewhat bleak, which is fitting with the movie's general theme.

The problem is that there is too little story here. The writer/director Sean Ellis tries to solve this problem with short intercut scenes and unsettling movie. At first it works and you're intrigued, but at some point it just seems as if Ellis was beating a dead horse. It's like: "Yeah, we've seen these flashbacks, now could you PLEASE go on with the story."

And what is the story anyway? We never find out. Why is there a psychiatrist in the movie? Why are the characters introduced so long, when their relations never amount to anything?

"The Brøken" seems like an underdevelopped idea and the ending is rather predictable. It's not a complete waste of time, but in the end it's pretty much pointless.

I read about this movie in a magazine and I was intrigued. A woman, who one day sees herself drive past in her own car. Well, I thought, this could be interesting...

...but it isn't. First, the title. The Broken? The Broken...what? What is broken? The...oh, wait...I get it, the title itself is "broken"! WOW, clever! Unfortunately, this is virtually the only thing going for it.

The premise is not that bad, but I think Kiefer Suderland did much better in 'Mirrors'. A cross between Invasion of the Body Snatchers and Mirrors, and a rather mediocre one at that. A more suited title would be 'The Boring', since it draws out every single scene for bloody ages. Or maybe 'The Confusing' since it doesn't explain anything at all, not in the narrative nor in the story itself, only some vague idea about evil copies and somesuch, dotted with cheap scares and scenes used to death, but nothing tangible. It's just messed up.

On the other hand, the acting and the special effects are quite good, but then again, it's not a difficult role to act.

After watching the movie twice, I still feel unsatisfied, a little confused maybe, and not in the E. A. Poe or Stephen King kind of way. Do yourself a favor, and don't watch this one. Simply put, there are better thrillers out there.

Having read many of the comments here, I'm surprised that no one has recognized this as basically an overlong remake of a Twilight Zone episode from 1960 called "Mirror Image," starring Vera Miles. Rod Serling did a much better job of creating an effective spooky tale in 24 minutes than Sean Ellis did in 88 minutes with this tedious snooze. A short piece can be effective with a mysterious and unexplained ending, but in a feature film, there should be a bit more substance and the story should make sense. Sadly, substance and sense are two things missing from "The Broken." Yes, it has some moments, but they are not enough to justify your time. Some further observations: although this is clearly a contemporary story, not one character in the movie has a cellphone! And even though a car accident is the event that gets the story going, there is never any reference to an insurance company, to the person who was driving the other car, or to the police who would have been required to do a report. My advice: skip this bore and watch the original instead!

I've been reading a lot of the comments on this film and thought I should throw in my ten penneth as I think a lot of them are being too overly critical. Yes, some of the comments are justified - at times the plot does seem to have been neglected, it is slow, and yes, the conclusion doesn't really explain much. But I don't know if all these thing (except maybe the plot) are all bad.

What this film did for me was to relay an uneasy and compelling atmosphere, something which I think is lacking in most modern horror films. This was created by the slow unending shots which seemed to have annoyed a lot of people. I admit at times I was thinking 'come on, get on with it' but perhaps that was due to the discomfort I felt.

If I was to explain to somebody the premise of this movie, and what I thought it was about, I must admit that it would sound ludicrous. But sometimes good films don't need plausibility, nor do they need everything tied up in the end so the viewer can leave it behind knowing exactly what was what.

I had an emotional reaction to this film, and this is becoming more and more rare for me in modern films. Also, it is worth noting that the acting was exceptional and very understated. Richard Jenkins is becoming godlike in his abilities and he once again doesn't disappoint here.

I would recommend this to people. It is far from perfect. But for a slow-paced psychological and mysterious celluloid experience, it pushes a lot of the right buttons.

They say that a broken mirror is sure to cast seven years of bad luck (or bad sex, as a character quips early on) to those who break it, and although such a concept is deeply rooted in mystic superstition, there nevertheless remains an eerie, foreboding core to its warning. Perhaps coincidentally however, is the much more tangible, but inherently linked concept of the doppelgänger, who is said to appear either as an omen of sickness or death. Indeed, both share common principles with the mirror even producing doppelgänger's of a metaphysical sense, but both also share the undeniable clause for weariness or suspicion. Of course, in our daily lives, thinking with clear mind-frames and perspectives, such concepts are folly best left to those with padded walls. Yet, brought into the domain of film, there still remains a sense of wonder about them that allow the extra-dimensional nature of the medium to truly shine.

The Broken, which comes from up and coming writer/director Sean Ellis who last year wooed me with the surreal and abstract romance Cashback, not only indulges in these somewhat supernatural concepts tenfold, but does so in ways that the horror movie does so best. Taking a leaf from the genre's forefathers David Lynch and Alfred Hitchcock, with just a little nod here and there to the American Romantic macabre writer Edgar Allan Poe, Ellis here crafts a feature which borders on the surreal once more, this time on a much more subversive and subtle level. If you had told me that this young film-maker would go on to make a horror movie the following year after Cashback, I would have laughed it off—and yet, I would have had to choke back that laughter after catching a glimpse of what is offered here.

It all takes place in the busy city of London, as a family settles down for a small celebration of the father's birthday and retirement. During a warm, friendly dinner, the conversation is abruptly drawn to a silence when a mirror suddenly crashes down onto the floor, much to the shock—and then bemused laughter—of those there to witness. From here on in however, the laughter is far and few between from those family members. The Broken dabbles in and out of the idea that behind each of those family members' mirrors, lies an arguable alternate reality, or at least, person (read, doppelgänger), who is given form and begins to walk their own reality as if it was their own. Of course, it's certainly an unsettling idea that someone could infiltrate your own existence and somehow seek to replace you, and you can bet Ellis does well to capitalise on that sense of threat and claustrophobia.

Rather than stoop to genre clichés and derivatives however, Ellis subscribes instead to the roots of the more artistically-driven horror movie focusing largely on atmosphere and suspense with plenty of mystery in tow. By approximation, The Broken can not possibly have had any more than perhaps two or three hundred lines of dialogue inherent to its story, and so the amount of detail then that is pushed upon creating a slow-moving, but very intricate analysis of tone and eerie aesthetic, is potent. The result is a horror movie that doesn't necessarily feel like one that is out to scare you, but rather, unsettle you—make your mind race, and question the reality of what is going on within the characters' minds. Indeed, as opposed to simply delivering cheap "boo" moments, Ellis opts to get behind enemy lines, and scare from within, albeit cerebrally.

What is most interesting about The Broken however -as is usually the case with the best examples the genre has to offer- is not how Ellis manages to unsettle you, but how he gets you thinking. Behind the cold exterior and horror-movie façade of The Broken lays an intriguing allegory that sets about detailing the death of a person, or persons, through self-inflicted means. Be sure that I am not referring to suicide, or anything of a literal, substantial meaning, but purely of a psychological, or metaphysical sense. In the world of The Broken, central character Gina (Lina Headey) is on the verge of committing to a relationship; her father (Richard Jenkins) facing old age and retirement—it could be argued that many of the people within The Broken's story are facing the points in their lives where they symbolically end, with said doppelgänger therefore representing that very shift from life to death by their own hands. From this perspective, the ending to the movie attains a very poignant, and clear message.

Whether or not the viewer takes such a message away from what Ellis has to say here however, is beside the point. There still remains plenty of value of The Broken's story with or without the added benefit of subtext or allegorical meaning. The movie does have its fair share of problems most of which reside within the extremely slow-paced second act, which perhaps throws in a few too many indulgent scenes here and there with dubious characterisation; but such flaws are minor in comparison to those that we as audiences are so accustomed to when being treated to the average modern horror fare. Overall, The Broken is nevertheless a fine psychological analysis of ourselves as human beings, and how easy that barrier from sanity to insanity can be broken, with or without the accompanying seven years of misfortune. It's compelling, gripping and actually manages to scare while simultaneously tickling the intellect—now when's the last time a horror movie did that? - A review by Jamie Robert Ward (http://www.invocus.net)