There are very few figures from literature who have really stayed with me - who really feel like they're a part of my life - but Scout from To Kill A Mockingbird is one. And so of course I was alive to the resonance of the name - and character - of 11 year old Skunk in this one (convincingly portrayed by Eloise Laurence), and particularly when she has a Boo Radley-type figure living in her neighbourhood. As the film goes on, it becomes clear that the parallels are entirely intentional, although not exact - and while Broken shares with that antecedent a certain clarity of vision, it's not the same powerful moral clarity, but instead a kind of humanist optimism embodied in Skunk's nature and trajectory amidst an otherwise murkily nuanced set of characters and actions.
There's some pretty tough stuff in this film, and elements of the social realist genre that I generally so dislike, but a deftness of touch (not to mention top-notch performances across the whole cast - Tim Roth and Cillian Murphy being just the two most recognisable, although both are certainly also notably good) and a command of the material that enables the film to work through a frankly melodramatic series of events, particularly at its climax, without actually registering as melodramatic at the time, and to strike the right, hopeful but unsentimental, note in its final scenes. Nice soundtrack too. I wouldn't have chosen to see this on my own, but I'm really glad that I did see it.
(w/ Meribah - and a grand total of two other people in the cinema. I guess it wasn't the most obvious Sunday evening fare; as it was, we were there only because dinner had taken longer than expected and we were too late for the screening of Cloud Atlas that we'd intended to catch)
There's some pretty tough stuff in this film, and elements of the social realist genre that I generally so dislike, but a deftness of touch (not to mention top-notch performances across the whole cast - Tim Roth and Cillian Murphy being just the two most recognisable, although both are certainly also notably good) and a command of the material that enables the film to work through a frankly melodramatic series of events, particularly at its climax, without actually registering as melodramatic at the time, and to strike the right, hopeful but unsentimental, note in its final scenes. Nice soundtrack too. I wouldn't have chosen to see this on my own, but I'm really glad that I did see it.
(w/ Meribah - and a grand total of two other people in the cinema. I guess it wasn't the most obvious Sunday evening fare; as it was, we were there only because dinner had taken longer than expected and we were too late for the screening of Cloud Atlas that we'd intended to catch)
