BROKEN ENGLISH
A film review by Steve Rhodes
Copyright 1997 Steve Rhodes
RATING (0 TO ****): ** 1/2
Set in New Zealand, BROKEN ENGLISH is a poignant retelling of the Romeo and Juliet story. The young woman, Nina, played by beautiful Aleksandra Vujcic in her film debut, is a member of a large community of Croatian immigrants. Her lover, Eddie (Julian Arahanga from the explosive ONCE WERE WARRIORS), is a Maori and is the chef at the Chinese restaurant where Nina works as a waitress.
Their love affair would have little tension were it not for her domineering father, Ivan, played by Rade Serbedzija, who played the leader of the Russian Mafia in THE SAINT. Ivan is the type of father who is willing to lock his grown daughters in their rooms if they are caught doing something of which he does not approve. In the opening scene, he smashes the Jaguar of the boyfriend of Nina's equally grown sister. Ivan had found that Nina's sister was having sex with her boyfriend, and that was all the justification that Ivan the Madman needed.
BROKEN ENGLISH tells two stories and hints at a third. The intensity of the all too manipulative script by Gregor Nicholas, Johanna Pigott, and James Salter focuses on Nina's dysfunctional family. The father makes his living illegally growing and dealing marijuana. Even when not violent, Serbedzija makes you think Ivan is about to explode.
The family's problems are neatly laid at the foot of the war they fled and of unnamed Serbian atrocities. One telling scene has the family huddled around their television set watching the latest homemade tape of the war sent from their relatives back home at the front.
Nina manages to look fondly back on her time in the midst of the battle. She liked to drink, smoke pot, and wander around as the bombs fell. She found freedom and independence among the devastation. "I wanted to do what I wanted to do, no matter what," she tells us. "It was my moment of freedom." Her controlling father was so oppressive that freedom among the explosions was an improvement.
Nina and Eddie's romance form the second and most interesting of the narratives. The chemistry between them is touching and believable, and their few love making scenes are beautifully erotic even if only one is explicit.
(The film inappropriately has been tagged with an NC-17 rating, which director Gregor Nicholas protested and lost. The press kit explains the MPAA appeals board said that one of the film's love making scenes contains "buttock thrusting," so they felt that they had to rate it NC-17. Given the massive violence in countless R-rated shows, and the more explicit sex and more rampant nudity in many other R-rated films, it seems strange that one motion would make such a difference, but apparently it did. One wonders what poses a greater threat to a sixteen-year old: seeing someone's brains splattered on the side of a building or a couple of "buttock thrusts?" It would seem the MPAA believes it is the latter since the former gets a film the more profitable R-rating and latter condemns the movie to an NC-17. Some newspapers will not even carry advertisements for NC-17 films.)
The third story, which remains no more than an outline, is about Eddie's family, his people and his culture. We see them from afar in a few scenes, but we rarely venture into their world. Only his beloved whakapapa tree provides a link to this undeveloped part of the story.
Another subplot has Nina about to marry her friend Clara's (Jing Zhao) boyfriend, Mr. Wu (Yang Li), for money since Mr. Wu needs to be married to a New Zealand citizen to be able to stay in New Zealand. Both of these Chinese characters are so badly stereotyped that it becomes embarrassing to watch. Clara drones on about wanting to "make a little kiwi" with Mr. Wu.
The film smolders as if building to an explosive conclusion. When the ending comes, it is remarkably plain and unoriginal and packs little wallop. A bit scary, certainly, but nothing out of the ordinary.
With a surfeit of stories, the audience is too often shortchanged. An overly ambitious film, it does manage to deliver on the romance even if it too often buries it in the manipulative saga of the brutal family.
BROKEN ENGLISH runs only 1:30. It is inappropriately rated NC-17. Although there is sex, nudity, violence, profanity, and dope smoking, the level is on a par with most R-rated films and the violence is less. The movie would be fine for mature teenagers. I liked the picture just enough to be able to recommend it and give it ** 1/2.
**** = A must see film. *** = Excellent show. Look for it. ** = Average movie. Kind of enjoyable. * = Poor show. Don't waste your money. 0 = Totally and painfully unbearable picture.
REVIEW WRITTEN ON: May 2, 1997
Opinions expressed are mine and not meant to reflect my employer's.
The review above was posted to the
rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup (de.rec.film.kritiken for German reviews).
The Internet Movie Database accepts no responsibility for the contents of the
review and has no editorial control. Unless stated otherwise, the copyright
belongs to the author.
Please direct comments/criticisms of the review to relevant newsgroups.
Broken URLs inthe reviews are the responsibility of the author.
The formatting of the review is likely to differ from the original due
to ASCII to HTML conversion.
Related links: index of all rec.arts.movies.reviews reviews