User reviews

For a short film, this has a very recognizable cast, led by the guy who played Jimmy on David Kelley's show, The Practice. He is great here, along with the rest of the cast. You will also recognize Nurse Marquez from E.R. who is very fun here as the police station sergeant. The production value is okay, but the film makers knew well enough not to get in the way of the talented cast they assembled, and the story is powerful and haunting. Some of the film is in Spanish, and the version I saw did not have subtitles for most of it. I do not speak Spanish, but had no problem following the action. The music is very haunting too (not sure if it is original or not, but it fits very well). This is one of the best shorts I've seen this year (and I see them for a living).

Broken Circle takes place in an apartment of a former priest, Mitchell Stevens (Michael Badalucco), who still goes on supporting the less fortunate ones. He is called upon to give shelter to a Spanish speaking woman, Perla Rosarez (Delilah Cotto) that has been beaten up by her husband.

Mitchell is on a path to improve his life, and is struggling hard for that change to take place. He finds a great opportunity for redemption by taking in that young woman and helping her to solve her problems; to not only break his own vicious circles that he needs to get out of, but to break her circle as well.

This movie is about the effort it takes in order to change ones own life and habits, and what happens if you decide to change the lives of others with your own purpose in mind.

If you struggle with changing your own life for the better, are you still capable of helping others to improve upon theirs? Part of the movie is in Spanish (without subtitles), but that didn't bother me, since my Spanish and English are equally fluent. The quality of the Spanish dialog is equal to that one of the English one. This is actually an interesting director's choice, to not translate the Spanish into English, in order to make the comprehension of the context easier on the audience.

Well, I love this short movie, and can't wait for the next project to be made by the writer/director Aaron Sawyer.