BrokenLife would be simpler if we understood one another better without resorting to violence. And life would be simpler without the complications that make up the transition from child to adult. Puberty. Drugs. Bullies. School. Sex. Medication. But that is not the world we live in. Our world is held together by the tenuous concept of order, hinged upon the idea that even if we do not like someone, we still begrudge them a modicum of respect and decency. When Emily (Eloise Laurence)--who goes by "Skunk"--witnesses a shocking act of violence in the cul-de-sac where she lives, she begins to see the ugly cracks in the foundation that makes up her society.
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Broken is a story about growing up and the perils that come with it, for Skunk and those in her inner circle. Her father, Archie (Tim Roth), is a solicitor (attorney) who listens to her anxieties and ensures that she keeps up with her treatment for her Type I Diabetes. Skunk spends the days prior to her induction into high school stomping around a junkyard with her slightly older brother, Jed (Bill Milner), who in turn sneaks smokes from their live-in au pair, Kasia (Zana Marjanovic). Life should be easy and free for a girl like Skunk, who is very smart, but also well-mannered as a result of her father's parenting, even though her mother ran off with an accountant when she was young. Skunk's neighbors make up a tripartite microcosm, with one house belonging to the young--potentially autistic--man named Rick (Robert Emms) and his kindly parents, and the other house, where the uniformly awful Oswald family resides. After one of the Oswald girls, Susan (Rosalie Kosky), falsely accuses Rick of having raped her--a conclusion all too easily reached by perpetually furious Mr. Oswald (Rory Kinnear)--Rick is assaulted viciously by Mr. Oswald in plain view of Skunk, an act which defies her comprehension. Adults versed in child psychology--or even just astute parents--know that these things do not just go away, and they build and change Skunk's view of the world. In what proves to be the first in a series of legal injustices, Rick is taken away by the police, as he has been accused of rape, but released later when evidence proves his innocence; but the damage has been done. Rick retreats to his room, and hides away, convinced that he is bad because he was attacked and called horrible names by arguably the brattiest trio of girls in movie history. Skunk's witness of the attack causes her to view the dissolving relationship between Mike Kiernan (Cillian Murphy) and Kasia in a way that suggests more strife and potential for violence, which is hard for Skunk since she evidently has a bit of a schoolgirl crush on Mike--who a short while later becomes her teacher in high school. Her brother instructs her as to all the horrors awaiting her in school--getting punched in the stomach, getting her hair yanked and cut, and so on. Although Archie informs her that these are merely the stories kids tell one another to keep the first-years in check, her paths cross with the youngest Oswald brat, named Sunrise (Martha Bryant) with no small amount of irony, and the myth proves more true than she would have liked.
Tensions are constantly in an upward swing in Broken, and the implication is that the acts of violence perpetrated by Mr. Oswald have rippling effects on the whole cul-de-sac, effectively destroying Rick's life, and altering so many others around Skunk by proximity or direct confrontation. When Mike catches Sunrise and the eldest Oswald, Saskia (Faye Daveney) beating Skunk up on her way home from school, he intervenes and sentences Sunrise to detention. When Susan--at a mere fourteen years--becomes pregnant, potentially with Jed's child, the girls conspire to implicate Mike as the culprit, prompting Mr. Oswald to storm the school in a rabid frenzy, and in the middle of class, brutally beat Mike. It is Skunk's intervention which saves Mike, just as he saved her, a reflection of his selflessness and his message of courage he spoke about during a lecture on a book--doing something even though you are afraid. Many people would be unnerved by Rick--who is strange, but kind--but Skunk makes a point to visit him in the hospital, when no one other than his parents do so, and checks on him to see how he is. The love triangle which forms between Archie and Mike for the love of Kasia makes things tense between the two men, exemplified when Archie shows up as Mike's solicitor after the police detain him upon the Oswald girl's second cry of rape. While the argument they have at a pub is understandable to a point, it seems that Mike is more aggressive and angry than when we first met him. Is it that he, like others including Mr. Oswald, simply fail to restrain their impulses when their emotions get the better of them, or that he has been "infected" by the presence of violence? Even Archie loses his cool a bit when Skunk persists in begging for a new phone, her previous one broken by Sunrise's bullying, though Skunk withholds this bit of information. Skunk finds some friendship in a boy her age who wants to be her boyfriend, giving Skunk her first innocent kiss in a dilapidated van by the junkyard they hang out at. But even for such a simple, sweet relationship, there is the ever present sensation that everything has changed for Skunk following that one traumatic event, evidenced by her new perspective; it was all around her, but now she sees it. Broken is often described as a retelling of Harper Lee's "To Kill a Mockingbird"; the film was adapted from a novel of the same name by Daniel Clay, and both stories share many similarities, stylistically and in terms of plot. I suspect Scout and Skunk would have been best of friends.
Recommended for: Fans of a "coming of age" drama, which deals with the impact violence can have over a community, and how growing up with good parenting can make all the difference in a child's life; it can even be a life saver.
Tensions are constantly in an upward swing in Broken, and the implication is that the acts of violence perpetrated by Mr. Oswald have rippling effects on the whole cul-de-sac, effectively destroying Rick's life, and altering so many others around Skunk by proximity or direct confrontation. When Mike catches Sunrise and the eldest Oswald, Saskia (Faye Daveney) beating Skunk up on her way home from school, he intervenes and sentences Sunrise to detention. When Susan--at a mere fourteen years--becomes pregnant, potentially with Jed's child, the girls conspire to implicate Mike as the culprit, prompting Mr. Oswald to storm the school in a rabid frenzy, and in the middle of class, brutally beat Mike. It is Skunk's intervention which saves Mike, just as he saved her, a reflection of his selflessness and his message of courage he spoke about during a lecture on a book--doing something even though you are afraid. Many people would be unnerved by Rick--who is strange, but kind--but Skunk makes a point to visit him in the hospital, when no one other than his parents do so, and checks on him to see how he is. The love triangle which forms between Archie and Mike for the love of Kasia makes things tense between the two men, exemplified when Archie shows up as Mike's solicitor after the police detain him upon the Oswald girl's second cry of rape. While the argument they have at a pub is understandable to a point, it seems that Mike is more aggressive and angry than when we first met him. Is it that he, like others including Mr. Oswald, simply fail to restrain their impulses when their emotions get the better of them, or that he has been "infected" by the presence of violence? Even Archie loses his cool a bit when Skunk persists in begging for a new phone, her previous one broken by Sunrise's bullying, though Skunk withholds this bit of information. Skunk finds some friendship in a boy her age who wants to be her boyfriend, giving Skunk her first innocent kiss in a dilapidated van by the junkyard they hang out at. But even for such a simple, sweet relationship, there is the ever present sensation that everything has changed for Skunk following that one traumatic event, evidenced by her new perspective; it was all around her, but now she sees it. Broken is often described as a retelling of Harper Lee's "To Kill a Mockingbird"; the film was adapted from a novel of the same name by Daniel Clay, and both stories share many similarities, stylistically and in terms of plot. I suspect Scout and Skunk would have been best of friends.
Recommended for: Fans of a "coming of age" drama, which deals with the impact violence can have over a community, and how growing up with good parenting can make all the difference in a child's life; it can even be a life saver.