192. More Beautiful For Having Been Broken; movie review

MORE BEAUTIFUL FOR HAVING BEEN BROKEN
Cert TBA
111 mins
BBFC advice: TBA

It feels harsh to condemn a film-maker whose heart is as clearly in the right place as Nicole Conn's.
Her movie is a reflection of her own tough life experiences of nurturing a disabled child after her partner had walked away.
Meanwhile, she is also trying to bring a gay relationship into the mainstream and even makes a minor comment about the perils of alcohol.
The problem is that More Beautiful For Having Been Broken is trying to work on too many fronts and becomes a jumble.
In addition to the above, Conn's lead character is a suspended  FBI agent (Zoe Ventoura) and, just in case we weren't sated, there are bereavement, a jigsaw obsessive and dreamlike dance sequences.
Ventoura's McKenzie finds solace during gardening leave in a spot where she used to holiday with her recently deceased mother.
She is embraced by the community except for the mum (Kayla Radomski) of a severely disabled but very charming little boy (Cale Ferrin).
As anybody would, she takes to the impish ten-year-old but his parent rails against her becoming too close.
Nevertheless, well over an hour is devoted to the trials bringing up a son with very complex needs. Nobody could argue with authenticity because Ferrin's character Freddie is based on Conn's son, Nicholas and the youngster is splendidly alluring as Freddie.
Indeed, if this movie was completely focused on him, I am sure that I would be writing in more glowing terms about it.
But it isn't. Indeed, Freddie becomes a side issue to the problems of both his mum and her new best friend who start to make soft-focus eyes at each other.
More Beautiful For Having Been Broken is an oddity in the everyfilm challenge because it has the look and stilted dialogue of an old-fashioned TV movie.
It belongs on one of those channels which I only know exist as part of my Virgin Media package because I occasionally flick past them looking for sport or news.
It also movies around so much, I feared becoming dizzy.

Reasons to watch: Stand-out performance by Cale Ferrin
Reasons to avoid: Its makers don't seem to know what they want it to be

Laughs: None
Jumps: None 
Vomit: None
Nudity: None
Overall rating: 3.5/10

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The final word. Nicole Conn: “I don’t want people to feel sorry for us. I want them to realize we have something really special in our lives. That’s what I really want the film to say. That, and don’t make our kids invisible.” Fobes

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