As a lonely man myself, and one who seems to be looking for love in the wrong places, this connected to me more than I was expecting. "Broken English" is the first movie of another member of the Cassavetes clan: Zoe R. Cassavetes, daughter of legendary actor/director John Cassavetes, who as her brother Nick, decided to try her chance in the feature film world (we only have to wait for her sister Alexandra now). Well, good for her. The movie does have its typical shortcomings of a first timer like shamelessly borrowing ideas from other films/paying homage to them as I prefer to call it eheh and it sometimes doesn't have a driving point of your average romantic comedy (you might think it doesn't have a clue how to wrap itself at some point) - I mean, it takes half an hour to get to the "woman meets guy" thing and a final half an hour to do what most comedies do in 5-10 minutes, but you see, that works perfectly here as a reviewer pointed out. With its main character trying to find love in the big city(es), the movie's lack of distinctive direction favoring mostly the psychosis of its main character and her naturalistic relationship with the people she meets along the way works. I confess I haven't seen any film directed by her father (not even Gloria! only the remake with Sharon Stone, which I actually liked..? ), so I can't really compare the two styles, but he seems to have made many improvisational dramas which would make perfect sense to say "it runs in the family"...




Now, let's talk about what really sets apart this from the typical indie fare and makes a decent and interesting movie turn into a very good one. While other members of the cast do pretty well with what they have - namely Melvil Paupaud (from the brilliant Le Temps Qui Reste), Drea de Matteo and veteran Gena Rowlands (Zoe's mother), the movie's real shining force is its leading actress. As a thirty-something woman desperately looking for love, Parker Posey, with a well deserved ISA nom, proves why she deserves to be taken more seriously in the future, perfectly capturing the loneliness and a genuine sense of being lost. She's going to make my final ballot, that's for sure. If you want a reason to see this, think of her as a big one.


Either way, I was kinda moved and kept thinking about these characters for a while now. If that's not a good thing, I'm not sure what it is. Love?

I like this movie also. Seeing as how I have trouble with the ladies, this was a touching movie to see it from different perspectives.

I didn't think this one was that great. I expected better, especially with such great reviews.