Starring: Jude Law (Will Francis), Juliette Binoche (Amira), Robin Wright Penn (Liv), Martin Freeman (Sandy), Ray Winstone (Bruno Fella), Vera Farmiga (Oana), Rafi Gavron (Miro), Poppy Rogers (Bea)
Directed by: Anthony Minghella
Written by: Anthony Minghella
A fascinating movie, written with great empathy around an intelligent concept, and acted like a dream. The Oscar-winner Anthony Minghella (The English Patient, 1996) again excels both as a director and a writer.
A double break-in into the offices of a London architectural firm co-owned by Will Francis (a liquid-vulnerable Jude Law) leads to a similar breakdown in Will’s family life.
Feeling alienated from the “circle” of his live-in partner Liv (the ethereal Robin Wright Penn ) and her hyper-active autistic daughter Bea (Poppy Rogers), Will finds solace in his large-scale construction project at King’s Cross, a rather mixed lower class neighborhood with a heavy concentration of immigrants.
Amira (Juliette Binoche of Bleu (1993), an irresistible talent with a perpetual girlish charm) is one such immigrant from Bosnia who took refuge in Britain with her 15-year old athletic son Miro (Rafi Gavron), the same kid who broke twice into Will’s studio to steal his computers on behalf of his Serbian gang-leader uncle.
When Will follows Miro one night back to Amira’s humble two-room apartment, he realizes that the thief’s mother is the same woman that he accidentally met earlier outside his daughter Bea’s dance studio.
One thing leads to another and Will and Amira become lovers. But perhaps all is not what it seems to be. Perhaps there is a hidden agenda underlying Amira’s affection.
Yes, having been neglected for too long after losing her husband back in Sarajevo, Amira is hungry for human touch and attention. But after realizing who Will is and how he can hurt her son by going to the police, she arranges a blackmailing operation that she is not exactly proud of. But she feels she needs to do what a desperate mom gotta do to protect her son from going to jail.
On the other side of the equation, Liv continues her strained relationship both with a hard-to-control autistic Bea and Will. The two lovers (still?) don’t even look at each other anymore when they ride in the same car. What happened to that beautiful relationship, Liv wonders frequently. Will has no easy answers, especially as he continues his trysts with Amira.
The last Act is devoted to all main characters facing their own truths. The chain reaction of events set in motion by Rafi’s break-ins unravels a lot of lies and deception all around. So in one sense, the 15-year old thief comes across as the most innocent party in this whole social debacle.
Will comes clean with Liv but there still remains the question of how to repair his relationship with her and how to separate from Amira for whom he continues to have genuine affection.
When Rafi is at long last caught by police, both Will and Liv show up at his hearing and do a heroic flip-flop to save the boy from a long prison term.
At the end, Will goes back to Liv and Bea, while Amira returns to Bosnia with Rafi. What they leave behind is perhaps a better world in which grownups face their adult responsibilities while the children have more reliable role models that they can look up to.
A touching film with great authenticity brought to the script by Jude Law and Juliette Binoche.
Binoche has traveled to Sarajevo and stayed there for a while in preparation for her role, and it shows. From the “boreks” she fries for her son to the way she showers Rafi with unconditional affection, she embodies the vulnerable Bosnian tailor in the heart of London to the letter.
Ray Winstone, a solid character actor (The Departed (2006), The Proposition (2005)) and the English equivalent of Scottish Brian Cox, again delivers flawlessly as investigator Bruno Fella.
Robin Wright Penn is certainly an actress of significant consequence, almost in the same class as Meryl Streep in calibration. It’s hard to believe she is acting at all, and that says a lot about her subtle gift.
And if you are already a Jude Law fan, this film will just re-confirm your reasons all too well.