Anthony Minghella's new movie Breaking and Entering employs a number of apparently disparate elements from the crime film to explore a surprising variety of relevant contemporary subjects, suggesting once again that popular art often captures some of the essence of its time and place. Although the picture, rather like Closer of a couple of years ago, stars the ubiquitous Jude Law as yet another anguished, desperate lover in upscale London surroundings, it concentrates on matters far more complex than the alternating sexual couplings of that work. Its relatively simple situation expands into considerations of such matters as intensely difficult parent-child relationships, class, race, and the nature of urban life.

Law plays Will Francis, a successful architect supervising the grand renovation of a large slum area in North London, an apparently revolutionary rethinking of urban design. He lives with a Swedish woman, Liv (Robin Wright Penn), and her high-functioning autistic daughter, whose condition exerts an enormous strain on their relationship. When an acrobatic teenage burglar, Miro (Rafi Gavron), working for a gang of Bosnian immigrants, breaks into his enormous office and steals his personal computer, both his professional and personal life undergo a profound transformation.

He discovers the boy's identity and follows him to a nearby housing project, where he lives with his widowed mother, Amira (Juliette Binoche). Initially intent on recovering his property, he sympathizes with Amira's difficulties as a single parent of a rebellious, talented son, whose athleticism resembles the gymnastics that obsess Liv's daughter, and recognizes the ironic parallels in their situation. Her unhappiness and vulnerability first arouse compassion, then passion, and the two begin a brief, torrid affair.

Complicated, like all the relationships in the movie, by misunderstanding and suspicion, their affair underlines a number of themes that the crime itself exposes. All the characters dwell in a world profoundly divided by issues of social and economic class, a burden that no serious work of British literature or cinema can escape. The obvious differences between immigrant and native, lawbreaker and solid citizen develop additional complexities --- intercutting between parallel scenes, the director shows Will and Liv consulting a smooth therapist about her daughter, while Amira and her son meet with a bullying social worker; Will's partner and the police suspect the cleaners because they are black, and his partner expresses surprise when one of them mentions Kafka; a sympathetic detective explains to the architects that people like themselves enjoy the advantage of lawyers, while the thief will simply end up in prison.

In some ways Breaking and Entering suggests perhaps too many subjects and themes. Liv's anger, depression, and frigidity, her failure to appreciate Will's efforts to support her career and help her daughter explain his attraction to Amira, but not his desire to remain in his unhappy domestic situation. His stated hostility to organic nature --- the bits of green, as he calls landscaping for his grand project, and an annoying fox that barks in his back yard --- never really develops much in the way of significance.

A troupe of fine actors supports Minghella's generally intelligent and convincing script. Although he appears in far too many movies without any particular distinction, and demonstrates once again an inability to express any range of emotion, Jude Law at least does not disgrace himself. Robin Wright Penn, who rarely seems interesting, remains true to form, dull, flat, and opaque, imparting almost no personality to her character.

The real strength of the picture grows from the performances of other actors, especially Juliette Binoche, who manages the challenging task of looking both unglamourous and beautiful at the same time, and in one shocking scene near the end displays an extraordinary depth of emotion, almost embarrassing in its intensity. Like many British films, Breaking and Entering exhibits its skill in almost all the supporting parts. Ray Winstone in particular, as the detective who investigates the burglary and understands the real issues at stake, and Vera Farmiga as one of those philosophical hookers that filmmakers love, simply overwhelm Law's pretty-boy looks and weak voice. They convey the real vitality and intelligence of the movie's rich and thoughtful examination of some powerful and unhappy truths.

Breaking and Entering (R), directed by Anthony Minghella, is now playing at Pittsford Cinemas.