Broken

The intertwining lives of three families living in a suburban cul-de-sac provide the traffic of Broken’s stage: a single father (Tim Roth) and the au pair who looks after his teenage son and pre-teen daughter; a widower (Rory Kinnear) and his three tearaway daughters; and a couple with a troubled twenty-something son. A single lie has brutal consequences that reach further in time and scope than could have been predicted, all of which we see in intimate and harrowing detail.

At the centre of it all is the delightful eleven-year-old girl known as Skunk, played by Eloise Laurence with an astonishing self-assurance and charm. The story is told in essence through Skunk’s eyes and her innocent curiosity is transferred to the audience as some events occur seemingly without reason, although they are explained retrospectively. Laurence’s is one commendable performance among many – Kinnear picked up the British Independent Film Award for Best Supporting Actor last year; Cillian Murphy (as Mike, ill-fated both as Skunk’s teacher and the au pair’s boyfriend) was nominated for the same award and Roth’s name made the Best Actor shortlist.

To watch this film is to spend 91 deeply affecting and utterly rewarding minutes in front of the screen. Many reviewers have been less enthusiastic about this film than I, but I would urge you to see it nonetheless. Insofar as a film can be compassionate, Broken fits the bill. It invites no moral judgement on any of the characters, which is not to say by any means that the narrative is disinterested – quite the opposite. The story is told with such sensitivity and sympathy (which some critics have considered over the top), even at its bleakest moments, that it becomes impossible to take a step back. Nor is there even a hint of resolution; no ends are tied up to give us the satisfaction of justice being done, but the lack of catharsis that we might be used to getting from high-emotion films is, paradoxically, cathartic in itself.

The normality of life, so often maligned as being ‘dull’ by young children, is almost celebrated in this film, even while it is being disturbed. Skunk’s own misdemeanours (staying out late) are not escapist cries for adventure, but instead an attempt to reinforce stability by testing and strengthening her father’s concern for her. His response to her, when he chastises her for having missed a treatment she needs to control her diabetes, speaks of their wider situation: ‘You can never forget how important this is. I know it’s routine. I know it’s hard.’ The mundane and the extraordinary are juxtaposed throughout.

What drives the narrative is a primitive cycle of dishonesty and violence fuelled, essentially, by love. Whether it leads to dangerous and misdirected anger, whether it is confused, laboured, or manifested tenderly, love too often strives for recognition and reward throughout this film. Tragedy arises when love is not treated as a motive for right action or even as an act in itself, but is manipulated to violent ends. We can argue that love in this case has been corrupted by grief, pride, anger or envy, but we cannot deny that it is present, and with it is grace: after all, Ubi caritas et amor, Deus ibi est.

The commandment to love one’s neighbour as oneself might seem to be the reference that applies most directly to the story of Broken, but I think that, as the title suggests, it lends itself more readily to another. To be broken does not mean to be without God, quite the opposite: it was in the breaking of bread that they recognised Him (Luke 24: 30-31).

Frances Murphy



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