Breaking and Entering
Hipster cheats his wife thrice, while ignoring her autistic kid, gets away with it with passionate kisses.
I think that sentence downplays how evil Jude Law’s character is. His scenes with Juliette Binoche are borderline abuse, and that’s without considering the plot. This is the same director from The Talented Mr. Ripley so all bets are off and perhaps he is Mr. Ripley and both films are set in the same universe.
On the other had, a purely idealistic view could make the case he is a flawed (and how!) man reaching a low point in his life seeking solace elsewhere. After a series of contrived coincidences, he turns a new leaf and it is now emotionally free to return to his old flame/wife. However, that would be laughably naïve, who would say such a thing?
This dichotomy between views remains because the protagonist is a twat pissing away good will, but the script lacks the guts to make him a full-fledged villain (just like Mr. Ripley). It serves only to make his final volte-face more dramatic, at the expense of script bending over backwards to get him a nice resolution.
At least there are a series of secondary characters to change the pace from the banality of evil.
Martin Freeman plays his character from The Office.
Vera Farmiga plays the hooker that will get philosophical but in the next sentence:
I can still make you come, just not inside me. Some guys think that is not cheating.
She does get the best lines.
Ray Winstone plays the cop that wants to help the poor criminal, a refreshing change of pace for him.
Ultimately, the script is the big letdown, but inspired performances from veteran actors make up for it and this is a great watch.
This is my place for ramblings about sequences of images that exploit the human visual limitation know as persistence of vision.