Will (Jude Law of The Holiday) is a partner in an architectural firm located in a rough London neighborhood, where he has taken on the task of gentrification by upgrading his offices and warehouse. His wife Liv (Robin Wright Penn of Nine Lives) has a young teenage daughter Bea (Poppy Rogers of From Hell), from another relationship, but Bea looks to Will as her father. The rose is off the bloom in the marriage, in part because Bea has emotional problems and she demands all they have to give.  

 Miro (Rafi Gavron of TV’s “Rome”) is another teenager flexing his muscles, so to speak. He’s upset about the death of his father. He and his mother Amira (Juliette Binoche of Cache) are from war torn Sarajevo. Amira seems content to just get by, repairing clothing. Miro is in with the wrong crowd and repeatedly breaks into Will’s office. It’s a challenge to get by the security system and confound the police. 

Will, who has little confidence in the police, decides to play detective on his own to catch the thief. While on stakeout in the alley behind his building, he meets Oana (Vera Farmiga, The Departed), a persistent prostitute, who decides to keep Will company in his SUV, even though she can’t persuade him to be a client. Besides, the truck is warm.

 Will sees Miro try unsuccessfully to break in once again, and though he doesn’t catch the boy, Will follows him to the apartment he shares with his mother. Will eventually meets Amira when he hires her to mend a jacket of his. This provides a reason for him to come to her apartment again.

 At this point the film takes on an adulterous edge, as Will allows himself to succumb to Amira’s manipulations ¾ and vice versa. As a mother who will do anything to protect her son, Amira sets up Will for blackmail so he won’t press charges against Miro. From the beginning theirs is a desperately dispassionate relationship. Both Will and Amira remain unhappy.

 Although the ending may not be realistic, it does respect how relationships can hit rock bottom yet find a way to rekindle.  

 Breaking and Entering was written and directed by Anthony Minghella, who also examined how men and women relate in Cold Mountain, The Talented Mr. Ripley and The English Patient. This is a picture for moviegoers with an acquired taste for films that are in your face in one aspect, yet subtle in many others. The tone of the film focuses on how the course of life can take an optimistic situation and turn it into a real struggle. Unfortunately, we often have a knack for that.  With some serendipity, common sense and allowing for the benefit of the doubt, we can sometimes find our way back.