What a waste of my time!!!

This Movie Can Only Be Described With One Word.

Fun premise, good actors, bad writing. This film seemed to have potential at the beginning but it quickly devolves into a trite action film. Ultimately it's very boring.

I enjoyed watching this film and would recommend other to give it a try , (as I am) but this movie, although enjoyable to watch due to the better than average acting fails to add anything new to its storyline that is all too familiar to these types of movies.

I have read so many conflicting reviews of this incredible film I was wondering if I had been watching the same film. This is a wonderful movie, which is one everyone should see. It focuses on Skunk, a young girl just entering secondary school who lives with her father and brother in a cul-de-sac somewhere in London. But it is so much more. telling the story of three families in total, their struggles, failures and just trying to make sense of their lives. Tim Roth is masterful as the dad who just wants the best for his family after their mum has left, equally Rory Kinnear is brilliant as the father of three wayward girls in who is trying to protect them but unable to understand exactly what from. Violent at times, and heartbreaking.

Broken is directed by Rufus Norris and adapted to screenplay by Mark O'Rowe from Daniel Clay's novel. It stars Tim Roth, Eloise Laurence, Robert Emms, Rory Kinnear, Faye Daveney and Cillian Murphy. Music is by Electric Wave Bureau and cinematography by Rob Hardy. Theatre and Opera director Rufus Norris turns his hand to feature film, choosing for his debut a cunning amalgamation of British miserabilism and knowing humour. Story is based in North London and primarily centres on a young girl affectionately known as Skunk! She witnesses a sickening act of violence in the cul de sac where she lives, from here the lives of the residents unfold in a number of identifiable ways. Thematically there's much going on, such observations on life's dilemmas from both a child and parenting point of view are superbly played out by the cast. It would have been easy for the makers to lean too heavy on the melodrama, or perform as if it's a headline torn straight from one of Britain's sensation yearning tabloids, but it's played with earthy realism, helped no end by the fulcrum setting of a residential cul de sac that on the surface looks normal, so therefore believable. But of course what lies behind a neighbour's door is rarely all glint and gold.The concurrent theme of violence, illness, heartbreak, grief, so basically life's strife's, gnaws away at the senses, but this is delicately balanced with much love and charm also on show, be it devotion to one's children, or the innocence of youth - puppy love/whimsy/ignorance/inquisitive leanings et al - this picture jabs at the heart in more ways than one. Norris and his team also have a nifty style of filming and scoring, very much putting us in the various frames of this story. It all builds to what in truth is a very crammed last quarter of film, because if ever there was a case for a much longer running time then this is a classic example. But it's just a niggle, and not enough to derail what is a moving, funny and crafty slice of Britannia. Yes! Even if the daring ending has proved divisive. 9/10

Is the girl Skunk or Scout? Is her brother Jed or Jem? How about the lawyer dad? Is he Archie or Atticus? And the Cunningham name rings a bell. And so on. Anyway, I am too familiar with To Kill a Mockingbird and I just kept seeing Scout in a terrible awful nightmare. But the acting was very good and the institution for kids who need mental and physical treatment is awfully disturbing just like in real life. And I'm not talking about the place where the car washer is sent to look out the window. The ending was very moving. I thought it was done really well. It was very beautiful. Sometimes I wonder just how English I really am. I speak the language but yet I speak with an accent. Can you tell? No, because I am only speaking in my head. And the words are I guess just broken English because my mind feels broken and my heart feels broken too. And if I could I'd find a way to leave this street behind and fly like a little bird. My eye is on the sparrow and not upon the junk yard culture that surrounds me.

Disclaimer, I'm a huge fan of both Tim Roth and Cillian Murphy so the fact that they were both in this movie just made me all kinds of happy.There's something incredibly raw and real about British cinema. There's nothing glamorous about this story dealing with a neighborhood embroiled in all sorts of disputes on different levels of the social strata. Eloise Laurence just blew me away in her role as the precocious yet delightfully naive Skunk. Despite Roth's and Murphy's star-power, it was Laurence who stole the show.If you enjoy gritty family dramas on the darker side of the emotional spectrum, and are looking for something a little quirky and different, then I strongly recommend this film. In some ways it reminded me of Imaginary Heroes and The United States of Leland, but with a distinctly British personality.