Synopsis
Set in a blighted, inner-city neighbourhood of London, Breaking and Entering examines an affair which unfolds between a successful British landscape architect and Amira, a Bosnian woman – the mother of a troubled teen son – who was widowed by the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
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Cast
- Jude LawWill Francis
- Juliette BinocheAmira
- Vera FarmigaOana
- Robin WrightLiv
- Martin FreemanSandy
- Rafi GavronMiro
- Poppy RogersBea
- Ray WinstoneBruno Fella
- Ed WestwickZoran
- Anna ChancellorKate
Recommendations
- 75
The A.V. Club
After being strapped down by a run of elegant, high-class literary adaptations--"The English Patient," "The Talented Mr. Ripley," and "Cold Mountain"--writer-director Anthony Minghella liberates himself in Breaking And Entering, his first wholly original screenplay since his piercing, minor-key debut feature "Truly, Madly, Deeply." - 70
Los Angeles Times
Despite very good performances and solid construction, it's a slightly too symmetrical, way too tendentious side-by-side comparison of two families -- Haves, meet the Have-nots -- who come into unlikely contact in the fitfully gentrifying area of Kings Cross. - 70
The New Yorker
The movie has a gentle, bemused intelligence, the tone of British liberalism at its most open-minded. - 60
Variety
Entirely respectable in every way, it nonetheless has a very cool body temperature and thus likely will inspire polite admiration rather than excitement among viewers. - 60
L.A. Weekly
Bold in scope and aptly mimicking the loose structures of kinship, friendship and work most city dwellers make do with these days, Breaking and Entering nonetheless plays out too quiet and too loose for its own good. - 58
Entertainment Weekly
However admirably Minghella urges a break from complacency and an entry into a state of local/global compassion, his characters are position holders rather than people. - 50
ReelViews
There's no shortage of candidates for the fatal flaw: the artificial storyline; the presence of a ridiculously cliched character; the lack of chemistry between illicit lovers. Blaming one of these problems is probably unfair. The movie's failure is likely based on a fusion of all these, and perhaps a few others. - 50
Time
The film is handsomely mounted and well played (particularly by the always magical Binoche--such a wonderfully alert actress), but somehow it never draws one into its schemes.
