Review of Broken (2012) by Panta O — 20 Jul 2013

What a wonderful British coming-of-age drama directed by Rufus Norris... mainly due to the amazing performance of the young actress Eloise Laurence. The film premiered at the Cannes Film Festival in May 2012 and it is based on the 2008 novel of the same name written by Daniel Clay. Excellent adaptation of the story of an eleven year old diabetic Skunk (Eloise Laurence) who lives with her father Archie (Tim Roth), her elder brother Jed (Bill Milner), and au pair Kasia (Zana Marjanović) in a typical British suburb. I loved everything about it, and enjoyed the acting of all of them with special mentioning of one of Skunk's few friends: Rick (Robert Emms), a strange young man living with his parents in the neighbourhood. The story focuses on three families who live in the same cul-de-sac and are linked by a violent incident that has far-reaching consequences for them all.

I read a few negative reviews and I really cannot understand why. The film even received the Golden Eye Award for best international film on the Zurich Film Festival. It also won The British Independent Film Awards 2012 for Best British Independent Film, and I think deserved all of them! Music score was amazing and I loved the comment of the first-time film director Norris who told BBC News after winning BIFA 2012: "Hopefully it makes it more likely that I'll get the chance to make another film." I hope he does very soon, because it was refreshing to see a movie where there is no bad or good only - Broken shows how people behave sometimes in really awful ways and sometimes in really good ways, often it's to do with love, protection or fear.

If you like to watch a movie which talks about things that affect us all, and have all your emotions involved, this one should do!