Breaking and Entering is Anthony Minghella's provocative romantic thriller dedicated to the proposition that the truest love is mostly likely a crime of some sort, even if the criminals are never caught out. A criminally gorgeous landscape architect finds himself the object of a very personal crime: the theft of the computing tools by which he plans to revamp Kings Cross, one of London's toughest, most vice-ridden neighborhoods. To add insult to injury, Will Francis (the gorgeous Jude Law) is confounded by a policeman, Bruno Fella (that rugged man's man, rascal Ray Winstone), who truly believes that smug yuppies like Will, with their trendy gentrifying schemes, are more of a threat to the nation than a common thief.
"They downloaded my personal photographs off my laptop, which they stole the first time."
"If [you and I] break the law, we're going to get a decent lawyer. Now these guys, who have broken in, they're going to go straight to jail, do not pass go. One law for us, another law for them."
"Except we haven't broken the law."
"Everyone's broken the law."
Since the cops can't help, Will and his architect partner, Sandy (Martin Freeman), decide to camp out in Will's car to foil the next attack. Along the way, Will and Sandy meet Oana (Vera Farmiga), a no-nonsense prostitute, who dares them to pay for the pleasure of her company.
Before he capitulates to Oana, Will spies a skinny young man brazenly leaping onto the roof of their converted warehouse. Will chases the thief, a 15-year-old, Bosnian-born Muslim kid named Miro (Rafi Gavron), back to the public housing flat he shares with his refugee mother, Amira (Juliette Binoche). Not disclosing his mission, Will sweet-talks Amira into letting him into her life and her son's unoccupied bedroom, where Will spots his stolen property converted to the task of fueling the dreams of a desperate young man. Miro's father died in the Balkans, and the kid has been playing hooky from school, acting as a lookout for a burglary ring led by his dead father's thuggish Serbian relatives.
Meanwhile, Will's domestic life is slowly unraveling, as his Swedish-born girlfriend Liv (Robin Wright Penn) is distracted by the 24/7 hands-on care demanded by her hyperactive, autistic teenage daughter Bea (Poppy Rogers). For Will, spending time with Amira becomes not only a means to solving Miro's crimes, but an escape hatch from a dying relationship.
Dangerous types
Anthony Minghella's past successes have frequently focused on characters who are either dangerous impostors (The Talented Mr. Ripley ) or who have reached that crossroads where wallowing in grief seems preferable to starting all over, as in his sad/funny tear-jerker of a ghost story, Truly Madly Deeply.
Will's decision to betray his life with Liv while lying to Amira — putting her precious son at risk of jail and deportation back to a murderous homeland — is depicted by Minghella as the ultimate crime of our disposable global age. In some ways, Minghella is arguing that there is an impenetrable core to British life, a true soul of the nation to which foreigners are not welcome, and that this may be partly to blame for the horrific attacks (occurring in the very neighborhoods occupied by the filmmakers) by British-born Muslim youth driven to destroy the symbols of a national culture that cannot bring itself to embrace their essential otherness.
While the theme rings true, the story's drama and emotional arcs falter. This may be Jude Law's best attempt yet to impersonate a human being, but it's still hard not to root for him to suffer a bit more. Ironically, Ray Winstone's tough, gruff copper is a more appropriate character to show a merry old England that possesses heart yet remains ineffably English. Winstone's burly bear is quick to spot a phony like Will, but he's also a guy who knows what love is, and is able to show it. In a crucial scene towards the end of the movie, Winstone's Bruno orders the furtive Miro to hop on the back of the cop's motor-scooter. "Put your helmet on. It makes you invisible. And don't stab me while I'm driving, you'll fall off."
Winstone, a three-time British Schoolboy Boxing Champion who has turned in sensational performances as a rural Australian cop fending off Outback madness and criminal gangs in The Proposition and as Jack Nicholson's muscle in The Departed, has surely earned his moment as an unruly romantic lead.
Minghella foolishly juggles dueling teenage subplots. As much as Poppy Rogers throws herself into being inscrutably autistic and thus driving Will out of her mom's bed, it's clear that Rafi Gavron's bitter boy-thief is closer to this perplexing story's true heartbeat.
While Breaking and Entering fails to take us to the heights of besotted, truly delusional love — as in Juliet Stevenson's matchless duet with her dead lover Jamie (Alan Rickman) of "The Sun Ain't Gonna Shine Anymore" in Truly Madly Deeply — it does speak to an equally important need: the task of keeping our hearts open during a perilous, unlovely time. We are left with Miro's existential wail to his worried mom, "You think everyone's good. No one's good."