Broken

2013
7.2| 1h31m| R| en
Details

Three suburban English families' lives intertwine with tragic consequences.

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Also starring Eloise Laurence

Reviews

Actuakers One of my all time favorites.
Tymon Sutton The acting is good, and the firecracker script has some excellent ideas.
Bumpy Chip It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.
Mathilde the Guild Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.
T1 Brit This is a magnificent piece of drama. Outstanding in every way. But I don't get the confusion about the message in many reviews. People have said lots of things like how it's complex and the message is hard to isolate. Well it didn't seem that way to me. The message I got was that one brutal man creates a vortex of destruction that hurts everybody around him. The father of the three girls is absolutely the source of all the grief. The fact that his girls are terrified of him, leads one of them to make a false accusation. His reaction is not to find out the truth, because, you know, teenage girls are not the most reliable witnesses. Instead he launches a savage attack on an innocent ( and helpless ) man which sets in motion a chain of events leading eventually to great tragedy. This is a guy who doesn't bother much with the truth, just violently attacks people ( twice ) on the word of his highly unreliable and conniving daughters. All the other characters have their issues, sure, but they attempt to deal with them in a civilized reasonable way. It's a dysfunctional, criminal and violent family that is the villain here.
xaniver Disclaimer, I'm a huge fan of both Tim Roth and Cillian Murphy so the fact that they were both in this movie just made me all kinds of happy.There's something incredibly raw and real about British cinema. There's nothing glamorous about this story dealing with a neighborhood embroiled in all sorts of disputes on different levels of the social strata. Eloise Laurence just blew me away in her role as the precocious yet delightfully naive Skunk. Despite Roth's and Murphy's star-power, it was Laurence who stole the show.If you enjoy gritty family dramas on the darker side of the emotional spectrum, and are looking for something a little quirky and different, then I strongly recommend this film. In some ways it reminded me of Imaginary Heroes and The United States of Leland, but with a distinctly British personality.
secondtake Broken (2012)A high stakes middle class melodrama that gets more and more intense—and improbable —as it goes. Well done stuff, with some disturbing insights into contemporary British suburbia.Besides all the tense thrills of watching some rivalries between kids and parents in this world, and a couple of love affairs blossom, what is the takeaway? I've been wondering that for two days after watching it. And in a way I think there isn't any "message" or large point here. It's a slice of life kind of approach even though the "slice" here is an unrealistic bit of hyper-drama.In a way this kind of interwoven tale of ordinary people experiencing extraordinary things (like murder) is a justification in itself. It's a high-drama movie, nothing less. That it is well made and well acted is a bonus. And the fact it manages to touch on issues of intolerance and misunderstanding in our current world is valuable. In all, well done, and well meant.It also avoids what you might call insight, for lack of a better word. That is, there are all these horrible events (and some lovely ones) and we don't quite know why that are happening, or why not, other than because of circumstance. The underlying psychology, and social fabric, is supplied only sparingly, though it is implied often. What results is still quite dramatic, but why do I feel drained and incomplete by it all? See this? Yes, absolutely. But knowing its deeper limitations.
TxMike I found this movie on Netflix streaming movies online. With such seasoned actors as Tim Roth and a few others it seemed like a favorable risk. Overall I am glad I took the time. It is an ugly story in many parts, with several instances of bullying and beatings. But the young actress who stars as 11-yr-old "Skunk" is delightful, and I found out later, quite a good singer and song-writer.The primary setting is a cul-de-sac community in a middle class area of England. The neighbors live relatively close together and everyone seems to know everything that is going on.One resident is Tim Roth as Archie, a lawyer and a very nice man. His wife has run away and left him with a son and daughter. He has hired a lady to stay there and be the surrogate mom. The daughter is Eloise Laurence as Skunk. She and dad have a good relationship, but she is also the adventuresome sort. She finds an abandoned caravan out back and turns it into her playhouse.Another family in the cul-de-sac has a son, Robert Emms as Rick, seemingly nice but clearly with some deep emotional issues. Another nearby family have 3 daughters who are bullies, and every time they see Rick they openly tease him and agitate him badly, even in front of the parents. They also bully kids at school, including Skunk, to get their lunch money.The story gets a bit complex, there is teenage sex, false accusations, a hot-head father who beats people up and asks questions later. Through all this Skunk is trying to make sense of life and happiness. She manages, just barely. Good story and very tense at the end.SPOILERS: Skunk is a type 1 diabetic, has to monitor her blood sugar, and occasionally receive an insulin injection. One evening she goes to visit Rick, recently home from a stay in a hospital, and no one knows where she is. She begins going into a diabetic coma, dad finds her just in time, it is touch-N-go in the hospital, we even see a near death scene from her mind's eye, but then she "sees" dad and comes out of it, she goes on to live.