The Broken on DVD

[cj2017]

 

 

 

The Brøken (cert 15)

Written and Directed by Sean Ellis (88 mins)

Starring: Lena Headey, Richard Jenkins, Asier Newman, Michelle Duncan, Melvil Poupaud

 

Gina McVey (Lena Headey) seems to have a normal life. She works as a radiographer at a London hospital, has a handsome French boyfriend and has a close relationship with her father and brother. At a family dinner a mirror inexplicably crashes to the ground - cue nervous laughter and jokes about bad luck - but soon afterwards, Gina’s normal life starts to go to hell. Convinced she has seen herself driving by in her own car, Gina follows the woman to an apartment block, and upon leaving the building is involved in an horrific road traffic collision. The crash leaves her with a head injury, but more than that: a boyfriend she no longer trusts, dreams full of violence and terrifying images, and a lingering sense of something she’s not quite remembering. Tracking back to piece together the incident that resulted in the car crash, Gina gradually unravels the mother of all identity crises.

Written and directed by Sean Ellis, The Brøken is an exercise in style over substance. The film is beautifully shot in a London drenched with metallic shades of greys and blues, the only vivid colour the blood red of Gina’s injured eye and the blood that drips in her nightmares or pours in the one jarring schlock-horror death scene. Unfortunately, Ellis is so taken with the look of his movie that he forgets to grace it with any logic, so no one knows why a doppelganger would choose to assume the life of a London radiographer, it just does. The thrill, therefore, must be in the chase, and Ellis does deliver a sustained sense of unease, some genuine shocks and a decent final-reel twist. This is despite every scene being accompanied by a relentless and incredibly intrusive score which is irritating within the first five minutes then becomes the equivalent of white-noise, negating any effect its underscoring of the tension may have had.

As Gina, Lena Headey carries the movie, and her performance – her determination to solve her own mystery offset against her rising panic at the turns it is taking – never regresses to the level of simpering horror movie stalk- and-slash victim. Instead, Headey is engaging and sympathetic, and as the movie approaches its climax she accords it an emotional impact which the film as a whole perhaps does not deserve.

The Brøken is a confused movie; full of reflections and mirrors, it seems to suffer an identity crisis of its own. Devoid of logic or explanation and obsessed with its own appearance, its narcissism negates an interesting premise, a leading actress giving it her all, and the opportunity to have been so much more.