Breaking the Girls (2013)

Sara Ryan: "Don't you wish that killing could just be legal?"

By Jamie Babbit
With Agnes Bruckner, Shawn Ashmore and Madeline Zima

I decided to watch Breaking the Girls mostly because it is directed by Jamie Babbit. She was involved in The L Word but I also enjoyed her other movies such as the lesbian cult classic But I'm a Cheerleader (1999), the mysterious The Quiet (2005) or the queer political satire Itty Bitty Titty Committee (2007). On top of that, the writers listed Guinevere Turner who signed one of the best novel adaptation in American Psycho (2000). I was hopeful, even though the rating was pretty low.

Sara is a law school student but works as a waitress at a bar to help with her scholarship. She has a crush on Eric, the son of the professor, but Eric is taken by Brooke. Brooke doesn't like Sara very much and when she sees her stealing tips from the bar she tells the boss and Sara gets fired and sees her scholarship taken away because of it too. Luckily, the same night she meets Alex, a young girl who invites her over and the two fool around. Sara think they should remain friends but Alex has greater plans in mind and might become dangerous when pushed.

The movie was an absolute disappointment and when I thought it couldn't get worse, it actually did. It starts off fairly well, even having some good music (you can't go wrong with Uh Huh Her) but as soon as the "crime" elements come in, everything spins into disaster.

The characters are not believable, the motives are far stretched, it is very inconsistent and everyone seems to have a born talent to plan murders for any profit. They also all happen to have dark background stories which might turn out to be lies, or not, depending on circumstances. Some visually good scenes can't help make this thriller good. The acting also happens to be below average which doesn't help its case. The legal aspects which could have been interesting, after all they are legal students, are all overlooked and we have no idea how one gets released from jail or why someone gets convicted. The proofs are very convenient and the characters when walking into a room with a corpse just love to bend over and grab the murder weapon... just to be sure.

I liked: The music. Under 90 minutes.

I disliked: Everything that had to do with the crime(s) which sadly becomes the main focus after the 25 first minutes.

20/100
Some good scenes and a good song have a hard time saving this big mess of a criminal frame.