Broken (2012 film)

Broken is a 2012 British coming-of-age drama film directed by Rufus Norris in his feature directorial debut. The screenplay, written by Mark O'Rowe, is based on Daniel Clay's 2008 novel of the same name and inspired by Harper Lee's 1960 novel To Kill a Mockingbird. The film stars Tim Roth, Cillian Murphy, and Eloise Laurence, with Rory Kinnear, Robert Emms, Zana Marjanović, Clare Burt, Bill Milner, and Denis Lawson in supporting roles. It tells the story of a young girl in North London whose life changes after witnessing a violent attack.
The film premiered at the 65th Cannes Film Festival on 17 May 2012, and was theatrically released in the United Kingdom on 8 March 2013, by StudioCanal. It received mixed-to-positive reviews from critics, who mostly praised Norris' direction and the performances of the cast. At the 15th British Independent Film Awards, it earned a leading nine nominations and won in two categories: Best British Independent Film and Best Supporting Actor (for Kinnear). Norris was nominated for the European Discovery at the 25th European Film Awards.
Eleven-year-old diabetic Emily 'Skunk' Cunningham lives with her solicitor father Archie, her elder brother Jed, and au pair Kasia on a cul-de-sac in a British suburb. One of her few friends is Rick, a slightly simple young man living with his parents in a nearby house.
Skunk is shocked when Rick gets beaten up by single-father Mr. Oswald, another neighbour: one of three of his daughters (Saskia, Susan, and Sunrise) has falsely accused Rick of rape. He is released when she is proven a liar, but he closes himself off. From then on Skunk's life goes downhill.
Kasia splits up with her boyfriend Mike, who is also Skunk's favourite teacher. Rick is put into a mental ward as he isolates himself more and more. Archie and Kasia are beginning a relationship, a shock to both Mike and Skunk. Oswald's daughters start bullying Skunk when the new term starts. Her first boyfriend suddenly has to move away, and does not tell her until the day before he leaves.
One of Oswald's daughters, Susan, gets pregnant by one of her many sexual partners, panics, and falsely accuses Mike. Oswald barges into Skunk's classroom and beats Mike. While Oswald is in jail, Archie provides legal services to Mike, and the three daughters throw a drunken party. Susan experiences a miscarriage at a house party, then dies, leading to Oswald's release.
Skunk secretly visits Rick when he has his first weekend at home. When she enters the house, she finds that Rick has accidentally broken his mother's neck, pushing her down the stairs, then panicked and knocked out his father. He won't let Skunk leave and does not realise Skunk's diabetes takes her into a hypoglycemic coma. Oswald finds Skunk, and a dead Rick (suicide), and gets her to hospital.
In a dream sequence, Skunk bids farewell to people from her childhood, including the recently dead, then sees her grown self, holding her baby. She wakes up in the hospital, with her father at her side.
In May 2011, it was announced that Rufus Norris would make his feature directorial debut with Broken, adapted by Mark O'Rowe from the 2008 novel of the same name by Daniel Clay. Cillian Murphy was set to star that month, while Tim Roth, Rory Kinnear, Robert Emms, Zana Marjanović, Bill Milner, and Eloise Laurence joined the cast in October 2011.
Broken was inspired by Harper Lee's 1960 classic novel To Kill a Mockingbird, but was not a literal re-imagining. The film was produced by Cuba Pictures and funded by BBC Films and the BFI in association with LipSync Productions and Bill Kenwright Films. Principal photography began on 17 October 2011 in Greater London, England, and lasted for five weeks.
Broken had its world premiere as the opening night film of the Critics' Week section at the 65th Cannes Film Festival on 17 May 2012. Wild Bunch handled the film's international sales.
In 2012, Le Pacte acquired French distribution rights in May, StudioCanal acquired U.K. distribution rights in July, and Film Movement acquired U.S. distribution rights in September. The film was theatrically released in France on 22 August 2012, in the United Kingdom and Ireland on 8 March 2013, and in the United States on 19 July 2013. It was released on Blu-ray in the United Kingdom on 8 July 2013.
On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, 62% of 55 critics' reviews are positive, with an average rating of 6.1/10. Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 53 out of 100, based on 19 critics, indicating "mixed or average" reviews.
Peter Bradshaw of The Guardian gave the film two out of five stars and wrote, "There are some good ideas, strong moments and a blue-chip cast in Broken […]. But they somehow don't come together successfully in this drama of dysfunction and pain, which too often looks strained, desperately self-conscious and replete with unconvincing and unearned emotional crises."
David Rooney of The Hollywood Reporter stated, "Overburdened as it is by narrative clutter and climactic melodrama, Broken is always emotionally engaging, never more so than when Laurence is at the center of a scene. She has a sweet, natural screen presence, quirky without being cute. The entire ensemble is solid, with the terrific Kinnear making an especially vivid impression as the neighbor from hell."
Fabien Lemercier of Cineuropa commented, "Broken reveals itself as a highly precise clockwork, endowed with an irresistible charm, thanks in part to a charismatic young actress (Eloise Laurence) and outstanding work on editing and music."
Charles Gant of Variety opined, "Melding heightened drama with quirky, state-of-the-nation social realism, the pic aims to undercut epic plot contrivance with naturalistic perfs and a lyrical shooting style."
Stephen Holden of The New York Times called the film "fine but unnecessarily convoluted" and wrote, "At a certain point, Mr. Norris forsakes realism for theatricalized fantasy, and Broken ultimately loses its stylistic cohesion, if not its humanity."
Mark Olsen of the Los Angeles Times remarked, "Solidly done if somewhat unremarkable, there is nothing particularly wrong with Broken, nothing that needs fixing exactly, and yet it never fully comes together."
Kevin Jagernauth of IndieWire commented, "If there's any silver lining to Broken, it's the performance of Laurence, who shines and delivers both laughs and heartache in the film. […] As for the rest of the cast, they are mostly wasted in one-dimensional roles that don't provide much growth. Broken simply can't get it together on any level, delivering a tedious drama, that for all the characters and over-emoting, doesn't have much to say."
Ben Kenigsberg of RogerEbert.com gave the film two and a half out of four stars and described it as "an absorbing coming-of-age drama that suddenly, pointlessly self-destructs with an onslaught of cheap ironies and overkill." Kenigsberg also stated, "Imagine To Kill a Mockingbird with multiple trumped-up medical emergencies and a cynically manipulative finale, and you might have a sense of how Norris's film plays by the end: broken, smashed, destroyed."