Harrowing and depressing British social drama about a young girl named Skunk (wonderful débutante Eloise Laurence) whose cheerful life is shattered when she witnesses a brutal case of violence in her street. Sadly for her and everyone else in her neighborhood, it's only just the start of a series of disturbing events that spiral ever more out of control until all hope for a peaceful resolution seems lost. The cause for all the trouble is an increasingly anti-social single parent household run by a father with severe anger issues (you can't really blame him) and his three teenage daughters, one more loathsome and dislikable than the other (great acting but rarely do you encounter characters you wish would die a horrible death so badly!). Despite Skunk's caring father (Tim Roth playing a good guy for a change, succeeding in making him look sympathetic despite failing to contain the situation and protecting his daughter) and her uplifting relationship with a young teacher (Cillian Murphy), things go ever more awry with deadly consequences. Romantic involvements break down, the innocence of youth is destroyed and everyday life soon turns lethal. But hey, if you read the newspapers you'll find this sort of thing happens on a daily basis: this can basically happen to everybody, including children. With Broken, director Rufus Norris has made a gripping and thought provoking drama, but its contents are so disheartening it's hard to sit through it all. To his credit it sticks with you for longer than you would expect, but that's not necessarily a positive thing, considering all the bleakness he serves. Even though it's meant as a serious study into the deterioration of everyday life in an average neighborhood following a single, at first seemingly isolated, violent event and the distressing repercussions it has on those involved, some notion of hope would have been most welcome. One cannot, and should not, deny that Broken is a thoroughly engaging film experience regarding a relevant social topic, but it would not be a bad idea to let people know in advance what realistic horrors they will need to endure.
Review of Broken
