The Broken Circle Breakdown

That's the kind of movie this is, the kind that sticks with you, that prods you to examine things. In the process, it reveals itself to be something of an emotional roller coaster -- but one well worth riding.

Rare, too, is the way The Broken Circle Breakdown incorporates music into its narrative. The songs - traditional bluegrass and country, and a clutch of new ones rooted in same - are as integral to the characters and their relationships as the dialogue.

While Felix von Groeningen's film, which centers around a couple whose child is diagnosed with cancer, could easily have strayed into maudlin territory, the deft, non-chronological structure and the constantly surprising, beautiful performances -- both acting and the musical -- elevate it well clear of any Movie of the Week associations.

Bouncing back and forth in time and emotional space, The Broken Circle Breakdown contains moments of beauty, power and tragedy, but the constant churning sometimes leaves the film without a solid foundation. Ah, but then there’s the music, soaring bluegrass performed with passion and talent.

Despite the music, and no matter how the film’s editors slice it, the attempt to get a rise out of the audience by way of the endangered child device verges on emotional pornography.

Both Baetens and Heldenbergh do their best to sell the story’s ups and downs even when the narrative gets bogged down with science-versus-religion ranting, yet you’re still left with a movie a little too reliant on playing clawhammer on your heartstrings.

Felix Van Groeningen's film owes more than a debt to the unwieldy narrative schematics of Susanne Bier's narratives.

It's a rich, raw, heartache of a film. A beautifully composed, soul-stirrining drama about love, family, sex, sorrow, faith and music.I really enjoyed it

The 86th academy award is ruled by the European nominees in the foreign movie category. The movie took the advantage of nonlinear storytelling. From present to past to future. Frequently everything keeps delivering the surprises. If you arrange all the story together properly, you would find a typical thematic. I must say the editing was what made the movie a better product. I think the best one I have seen from the recent on the editing perspective. Sadly, it was snubbed, in that category for 2014 OSCAR. This cancer theme movie is well deserved a place in the shortlist for foreign the foreign movie category. What I found short in the movie was the emotions. They had sufficient, but did not convince me all along. I usually wet my eye for the cancer theme when a character dies of it. But in this movie I grieved along the other character, but could not find a drop. All I was interested in fascinating characters. It was over a 100 minute movie, but I felt the pace was in a hurry. The transformation of a scene to another had broad skip in the timeline. When you watch the kid being treated for her ill in the first phase, in the next scene you would find her in a critical stage. Like that, it was racing towards the next stage of story development. It was kind nice to see two different characters falling in love and have a baby without knowing the consequences. They face it only when it begins to happen. So the story being told in that context in many pieces of flashbacks. The country musics and songs were good. The performances were also very natural from both the leads. It was well made from the directional viewpoint because of the well known contents to make it believable. In one word, it is well adapted stage play into a full length feature.

The anti-God harangue would have been pretty boring if there was not the unexpected twist of the ending. Most of the time, the science-vs-religion statements just get the opposite effect to what was intended: viewers end up thinking that atheism is not that good for mankind, and having a genuine faith in God would be much better for people because at least it helps in coping with a devasting drama like the loss of a child killed by a cancer. The tribute to Bluegrass music is so brilliant that it alone makes the movie worth watching.

Nothing very original about the movie. Seems like everything that has been seen before. The music was refreshing but seems to be forced into the movie as there was no strong correlation between the music and the story. I couldn't find anything that I could identify as new or fresh. And believe me I looked.