| DVD Review: Broken English |
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| Written by Joy Alicia | |
| Wednesday, July 11 2007 | |
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Writer/director Zoe Cassavetes seems to think that audiences are weary of seeing super hot young blondes struggle to find their Mr. Right. Consequently, her new movie Broken English is a chick flick for the faint of cliché, a highly enjoyable rom-com for the eye-rollers who groan at the typical 'girl-meets-boy-life’s-so-great' fairytale romance. The movie follows the adventures of Nora Wilders (Parker Posey), a thirty-something female attempting to navigate the dating scene in New York. Nora desperately desires happiness, but is drowning in self-pity. After all, she did set up her best friend Audrey Andrews (Drea DeMatteo) who’s now been married for five years.  Nora’s approach to finding a boyfriend is modern, yet flawed in an all too realistic way. When Nora tells Audrey she’s going on a date, her friend advises her, “Don’t sleep with him on the first date. That would be so available.” However, Nora allows her hormones to overrule her common sense and wakes up with a strange dude and a hang over. Similar to Sex and the City’s Samantha, Nora doesn’t hesitate to put out on the first date but ironically, doesn’t have even a fragment of Samantha’s self-confidence. A brilliantly multi-faceted character, Nora is a hopeless romantic with crippling insecurities and an idealist with a streak of pessimism. Nora goes out with the attitude that love will find her simply because she threw on a pair of stilettos and curled her hair. As Posey herself puts it, “Nora falls in love with everyone she meets and leaves herself so open to getting hurt.” But when Nora meets a handsome foreigner who uses bold, authentic pick-up lines, the rules change and she begins to let go of her emotional crutches.  Cassavetes confesses, “What I like to write are things that emotionally and reoccurringly bother me in life. I got caught up in the game where everybody’s like ‘Where’s your love? Where’s your other half?’ I’m obsessed with the idea of love and I wanted to make a portrait of what happens to someone when they get caught up in it.” With a talented cast of supporting actors and scene-stealing leading lady, Parker Posey, Cassavetes was able to successfully create the portrait she intended. A new, yet very capable director, Cassavetes' abundant use of close-ups and the pitch perfect soundtrack grasp your attention at the right moments and fade just in time to let you sigh in relief as the climactic scenes come to an end.  Still the reigning Indie Queen, Posey shines in an emotionally demanding, custom designed role which is enhanced by Cassavetes’ ability to allow viewers to experience an intimacy with her characters in easily relatable situations. Broken English is a funny, insightful, charming romantic comedy minus the saccharin Hollywood coating. Sometimes language isn’t perfect, sometimes people aren’t perfect, but Broken English suggests that not everything needs to be fixed. Broken English will be released on DVD August 21 from Magnolia Home Entertainment. The Broken English DVD will feature a Making of Broken English: Fragments of a Longer Story..., Higher Definition: Broken English Episode and Deleted Scenes. Available 8/21 for suggested retail price of $26.98 (buy it from Amazon HERE!)  Photos courtesy of Magnolia Pictures. Comments
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