Breaking and Entering (2006)Underrated. The acting is so good, and the story so interesting and not quite familiar (even if it uses some familiar ideas), and the way it is filmed and told so expert, it's hard to see why there aren't more people appreciating this. I really liked it, and was never distracted and disappointed.First there is Jude Law, a nuanced actor who rises above his reputation as a pretty man. He manages to come off as a self-absorbed jerk with a nice interior, then as a truly good man, then as a tortured adulterer. And some things between, all restrained and quite believable in a proper, well-educated London scene. Against him and even more astonishing (as usual) is Juliette Binoche, playing a Bosnian immigrant with a troubled son. Binoche's accent, to an American ear, and her mannerisms were so real I had to look her up to see if she really was born and raised in France (she was, in Paris, though her mother came from Poland). It is the troubled son who connects the two. Add a troubled marriage that Law's character has with a neurotic but striving wife (Robin Penn Wright) and their own daughter and her autistic tendencies, and you have a complicated world. And it takes a director like the also underrated Anthony Minghella ("The English Patient"), who made only eight movies before his early death, to make sense of this without pandering to sensation. And keeping it visually beautiful.There are flaws here, partly in the writing (also Minghella's hand), adding elements that seem a bit forced (the "good" prostitute, for example). And perhaps even the end, which is beautiful and idealistic and dramatic but a hair sudden after all, needed a different tilt. But in all there is psychology and sentiment and narrative twisting enough for any solid contemporary movie. It still resonates, even a decade later. So why the lack of appreciation? My first guess is that it isn't flashy, it never goes over any edge. You might say it takes no chances. But if you like a really well made drama for what it is, this is one to try.

Stealing someone's computer is a crime, but is it worse to steal someone's heart? Are you interested in this philosophical question? I am not personally. To me, Breaking and Entering is just another typical melodrama with a contrived plot, talking about a man betraying his lover and having a fling with another woman.Will (Jude Law) and his friend Sandy (Martin Freeman) run an architecture firm and move into a new office in the improving but still dangerous Kings Cross area of London, where they intend to transform a run-down neighborhood into a modernistic multiple-use park. Will totally immerses himself in his urban renewal projects. This worsens his relationship with his beautiful girlfriend Liv (Robin Wright Penn), who spends most of her time worrying about her autistic 13-year-old daughter Bea (Poppy Roger), who rarely sleeps and eats. Bea's only outlet for her energy is gymnastics.Their new studio office has been burgled twice within days by a local gang of thieves and Will chases one of the young gang members, Miro (Rafi Gavron), back to the apartment he shares with his mother, a Bosnian refugee named Amira (Juliette Binoche). Will befriends Amira to further investigate the burglary, but their friendship gradually turns into an affair. Amira soon discovers that Miro robbed Will's office and becomes suspicious of his true intentions in their relationship. Amira, thus, blackmails Will in order to protect her son… The director intends to make the movie conspicuous for its depiction of how different social classes and cultures collide. However, the contrived plot, the characters' strange behaviour and implausible lines hinder me from connecting with any one of the characters. First, it is unlikely for Will, a handsome English architect, to have a romantic affair with a Bosnian refugee whose son breaks into his office. The motive for his interest in her is unknown. Second, we don't understand why Will's daughter obsessively practicing gymnastics does not want to sleep and eat. Third, the Hollywoodized and unreasonable ending does not go with this independent film. {SPOILER} Why does Will suddenly become aware that Liv is the woman he loves most? Why are the policeman and lawyer easily deceived? Why does Liv easily forgive Will, after kicking the car and shouting neurotically, for having an affair? This is hardly believable.If you watch Breaking and Entering owing to Anthony Minghella's success with The English Patient and The Talented Mr. Ripley, you will be disappointed. If you watch it because of Jude Law and Juliette Binoche, a French actress who is able to fully master her character's Eastern European accent, you may feel satisfied. Despite the powerful cast, Breaking and Entering cannot break and enter my heart.

Wow, I was hoping for a lot more than this.It's script reads like a play and is stilted in the way most plays are. People just don't talk like this. Combined with poor casting and stiff direction it makes for a self aware and distancing film. It seems a little over rehearsed as well and therefore very unnatural. If you like good films, like '21 Grams', where the direction and acting is assured and the script beautifully fluid, you won't like this piece of poor theatre.I didn't really want to say much more but I have to write ten lines. The shooting style is also stiff and I couldn't imagine one of the actors actually 'being' one of the parts. Even Ray Winstone as the east-end detective was arch and stilted. His lines were appallingly written, where much of the normal banter between people who don't know each other was dispensed for lines that assumed a relationship. Just like most middle-class, self aware theatre pieces. In fact the longer I write this the worse it gets. Can I stop now please ?

I do not like to speak ill of the dead (except Hitler and Stalin) but this awful, awful film showed that Anthony Minghella's career was on the slide when he unfortunately passed away. Not that I have liked any of his previous efforts - Truly, Madly, Deeply was an unbelievable bad joke, English Patient overblown with repellent characters, Cold Mountain a waste of space and ridiculously portentous after the big explosion! This though is an attempt at a noughties art-house cross between Antonioni and Bergman that is boring, artificial with again totally uninteresting characters. Jude Law cannot open a film (he just repeats his Closer persona who is looking for love but cannot stop sha***** other women), Robin Wright Penn is a moody Swede going nowhere who is a double of Ulrika Jonsson! Juliette Binoche is prepared to get her kit off to blackmail and not look too good in the nude - brave but irrelevant!And how can you go with a script where the hero talks to his dysfunctional step daughter about communicating to each other in metaphors!! An original screenplay that sounds and looks like a stage play! Possibly the worst and most unprofessional aspect of this movie is the absolutely awful quality of the lypsynching! Give it a miss - theatre audiences obviously did!