We can never underestimate mankind's capacity for self-deception. In
December of 2006 the Weinstein brothers rushed Breaking and Entering
into one theater to create Oscar eligibility. You'd have to call that
extreme optimism, in light of the fact that only 33% of the film's eventual
reviews were positive. It never did reach more than 95 theaters, and never
made the top thirty films in any given week. It grossed less than a million
dollars in the USA. Did they really
think this was going to pull in some award season hardware, or were they posturing? Hard
to say. The Weinsteins have been able to work Oscar magic with mediocre
films in the past (Cider House Rules, e.g.), and this film is not without
virtues, so maybe they really believed it had a chance. It has a prestigious international cast, treats serious themes and
was directed by Anthony Minghella (The English Patient, Cold Mountain,
The Talented Mr. Ripley). Above all, Breaking and Entering has a sense of
its own importance and is full of gravitas.
Yup, as George Constanza might say,
"it's full of it all right."
Jude Law plays an architect who is so dedicated to his goal of
revitalizing decaying London neighborhoods that he actually moves his house
and office into a newly-gentrifying community of immigrants. It doesn't work
out. The office is soon burglarized twice - by the same people, it turns
out. Fearing a third break-in and frustrated at the lack of action from the
police, Jude stakes out his own office and soon spots the crook, a young boy
who had fled with his mother from the former Yugoslavia during one ethnic
cleansing or another.
The situation gets very complicated when Jude, who is frustrated and
bored with his long-term relationship, gets into a physical relationship
with the burglar's mother, played by Juliette Binoche with two facial
expressions - "about to cry" and "staring with dead eyes." Come to think of
it, those two facial expressions represent about 90% of Binoche's career, so
I guess she was cast perfectly. The burglar's mother gets involved with Jude
because she wants to protect her son, and is basically offering her body for
Jude's silence, but he doesn't exactly understand what she is capable of
doing for her son, or perhaps he doesn't want to understand it.
The four main characters (Jude, his live-in lover, the burglar and the
burglar's mother) would probably have created enough emotional edge for any film,
but the script gives Jude and his partner an emotionally-challenged daughter as well, and
the family ties are further complicated because Jude is not the girl's
biological father and he's not even married to the woman he's lived with for ten years
(Robin Wright Penn). Then there are the issues involving Jude's business partner,
the Serbian crooks, some cops, and a hooker with a heart of gold (Vera Farmiga). Farmiga basically plays the wise but world-weary hooker role with
the stock Eastern European fortune teller accent, as handed down to her from
the will of Anne Bancroft.
The film would have done well to get rid of several of those characters.
Jude didn't really need to have a business partner at all, and the hooker could also
have been dropped altogether. The daughter could have been eliminated or
made into an unexceptional child. That would have left the film tighter, and
would have left more time to develop the three key relationships which form
the true emotional center of the film (Jude's relationship with the two
women and the crook's relationship with his mother). The additional characters and themes were
probably intended to add intellectual heft and social consciousness to the
film, but served instead to divert the main flow of the film while creating a
running time which was excessive for such an inward and lifeless film. It's
"only" 123 minutes long, but seems like 123 hours.
There is some tremendous nudity in the film, but it is basically only
accessible by freeze-frame. There is a scene where Binoche gets naked and
crawls into bed with a sleeping Law, all to be photographed by her friend.
(It's blackmail evidence, if necessary to secure his silence.) The stills
show up later on Law's computer via e-mail, and we get a complete glimpse of
what the scene must have looked like originally. While the moving images
show only Binoche's breasts, and modestly at that, the still images show the
full monty front and rear from Binoche, as well as Law's bum. Unfortunately,
the computer screen is only visible for a few frames, the images are
extremely small, and it's not possible
to see the nudity without pausing.
(By the way, the DVD has several deleted and extended scenes, but there
is not a longer version of that scene.)
