Breaking and Entering (2011) Characters, Setting & Themes Explained

The movie takes place primarily in London, specifically the Kings Cross area. This urban setting showcases sleek offices alongside quiet residential streets, highlighting the contrast between professional life and private turmoil. The city’s layered social fabric, combining immigration, poverty, and ambition, provides the backdrop for the characters' choices and conflicts.

• london
• kings cross
• urban setting
• city backdrop

The story unfolds in contemporary, present-day London. Characters navigate nightly stakeouts, office work, and relationship strain within this modern era. The timeframe emphasizes ongoing social issues like migration, economic pressures, and family dynamics that remain relevant in today's world.

• contemporary
• present-day
• modern era
• london

Will faces a moral dilemma when the burglars threaten his livelihood and his emerging bond with Amira. He must choose between reporting the criminals to police or shielding them due to his empathy for their difficult circumstances. His choice to protect the criminals blurs the boundary between victim and participant, reverberating through his marriage and testing his loyalty to Liv and Bea.

• moral dilemma
• crime
• empathy
• loyalty
• police

Bea’s autism highlights how belonging can feel fragile in a modern family. The film contrasts Will’s sense of exclusion with the mutual belonging found in Amira and Miro’s relationship. Miro’s refugee status adds another layer, showing belonging as something earned through care and connection. Will’s pursuit of closeness with Amira reveals his longing for a stable, inclusive family.

• belonging
• family
• autism
• refugee
• connection

The burglaries reveal more about social margins than simple theft, tying crime to immigration and urban vulnerability. Miro’s acrobatic entry into secure spaces exposes the fragility of security and the desperation behind these acts. As police close in, Will must decide whether to aid the law or protect the individuals he’s grown to care about, questioning who bears responsibility when crime arises from hardship and longing.

• crime
• immigration
• burglary
• refugee
• desperation

Will Francis is a London-based landscape architect living a routine, emotionally distant life with Liv and Bea. His dissatisfaction with his personal life drives him to seek meaning outside his home, leading to an illicit connection with Amira. He begins nightly stakeouts of the burglary, which further complicates his already troubled life.

• will francis
• landscape architect
• london
• affair

Mirsad 'Miro' is a 15-year-old traceur and Bosnian refugee who uses acrobatic skills to break into offices. He lives with his Bosnian Muslim mother Amira, who works as a seamstress. His circumstances underline the human side of migration and hardship, adding emotional depth to the film's exploration of marginalized lives in London.

• miro
• bosnian refugee
• traceur
• acrobat
• immigration

Amira is Miro's mother, a Bosnian Muslim seamstress who lives modestly and works to support her son. Her presence adds a refugee narrative to the film and challenges Will's assumptions about crime and empathy. She represents the human side of migration, showing how hardship drives desperate measures.

• amira
• mother
• seamstress
• refugee
• bosnian

Bea is a 14-year-old girl with autistic traits whose irregular sleeping and eating patterns and social aloofness place pressure on Will and Liv's relationship. Her behaviors, such as somersaults and gymnastics, highlight the challenges of family dynamics within a busy urban life. Her condition tests the family bond and reveals the limits of their connection.

• bea
• autism
• daughter
• family strain
• teenager

Oana is an Eastern European prostitute who circles the area every night. She introduces a noir-like tension to the film and provides Will with a complicated, ambiguous entanglement during his stakeouts. Her presence adds another layer to the city's marginalized characters and contributes to the film's moody atmosphere.

• oana
• prostitute
• eastern european
• noir
• tension