After winning several Academy Awards through several dubious epics (The English Patient, Cold Mountain) English director Anthony Minghella delivers in Breaking and Entering his most personal film. Sure, this tale of a successful architect coming to grips with urban crime is full of liberal self-guilt and some not very believable plot twists and improbable coincidences, but it is still a quite interesting look at modern multicultural London. Jude Law is fine as the architect who starts questioning his life when his recently installed firm in a seedy neighborhood is burglarized by what turns out to be a gang of teenage refugees from the Balkans. Robin Wright Penn is equally fine as his Swedish girlfriend (it doesn't speak ill of her performance that the character appears to be a complicated and unlikable person: I think that's what the film means her to be). Less accomplished is Juliette Binoche's performance: she's a fine and beautiful actress, but just not believable as a Bosnian refugee (and mother of one of the burglars).
Review of Breaking and Entering
