Breaking and Entering

Will Francis, a young English landscape architect, lives a quiet, routine-filled life in London. He shares a home with his partner Liv, who is Swedish-American, and Liv’s 14-year-old daughter Bea, whose autism adds a delicate strain to the everyday. Bea’s schedules are irregular—sleep patterns waver and eating habits are unsettled—and her social world appears narrow, centered on somersaults, gymnastics, and a singular focus that makes it hard for her to connect with others. This behavior gradually erodes the closeness between Will and Liv, stirring a sense of distance in their relationship. Will feels increasingly shut out of the inner circle that Liv shares with Bea, partly because Bea is not his biological daughter, and the emotional distance becomes a quiet reservoir of tension. They begin relationship counseling in an effort to hold their bond together, yet the drift between them continues, as if the home itself is pulling apart at the seams.

Meanwhile, on the professional side, Will and his partner Sandy run state-of-the-art offices in the Kings Cross area. Their sleek, modern workspace is repeatedly burgled by a group of thieves who speak Slavic languages, their method precise and unsettling. Among the intruders is a 15-year-old acrobat named Mirsad, known as “Miro,” whose nimble, high-risk movements allow him to slip into the building where the two architects work. Miro’s life is shadowed by a harsher truth: he is a refugee from Bosnia and Herzegovina, living with his Bosnian Muslim mother Amira, who earns a living as a seamstress, while his Serbian father was killed in the war. The dynamic between the burglars’ world and the quiet life inside Will and Sandy’s offices becomes a quiet crosscurrent that will eventually pull Will away from his own private worries.

At first, Will and Sandy are puzzled by how the group can disable the alarm, but they do not immediately fear the threat. After the second break-in, they decide to stake out the building after hours, hoping to catch the culprit and alert the police. The late-night stakeouts reveal a different kind of lure for Will: the nights give him a chance to escape the chilly atmosphere of his home life and the sense of distance he feels with Liv and Bea. During this period, he forms a strange and complicated connection with an Eastern European prostitute named Oana, who frequents the area. The pursuit of Miro one night leads Will to the flat where Miro lives with Amira, and his curiosity about their modest world shifts his focus from the burglary to the people behind it.

Rather than report what he discovers, Will returns to Amira’s apartment under the guise of needing a suit mended. What begins as a harmless curiosity deepens into a real emotional entanglement with Amira, prompting Will to reevaluate his own life, his loyalties, and what he wants from the relationships around him. As the police close in on the burglars, the tension mounts and moral lines blur. Will finds himself confronting a crucial choice whose consequences ripple through the lives of everyone involved—Will, Liv, Bea, Amira, Miro, and the world they inhabit in this urban drama. The film juxtaposes the personal struggle to stay connected with family against the pull of a larger, precarious situation involving a young refugee and a community on the edge, asking what it means to take responsibility when finding a balance between duty, desire, and humanity.

Last Updated: October 27, 2025 at 16:47