With play adaptations, it’s often difficult to pinpoint the transitional liberties taken by the film’s screenwriter. In regard to either his own scripted dialogue or character placements, there serves a question as to what may have been taken directly from the staged version, transported effortlessly onto film.
“The Broken Circle Breakdown” makes some of the wonder more complicated, and some of it easier to think about. Johan Heldenbergh, a writer of the original play, “The Broken Circle Breakdown Featuring the Cover-Ups of Alabama,” who also performs as lead Didier Bontinck, reprises both roles for director Van Groeningen’s adaptation. The film also serves as Belgium’s selection for the Best Foreign Language Film category at this year’s Academy Awards.
Quickly pacing back and forth between flashbacks and a distraught, loosely present timeline, “The Broken Circle Breakdown” follows Didier and his wife Elise Vandevelde (Veerle Baetens) through their relationship with one another. One storyline depicts their initial interactions with Elise as the manager of a tattoo parlor and Didier as the member of an acoustic bluegrass band, and their respective interest in each other’s passion. A second storyline follows their ideological differences, openly presenting their troubling disdain for each other’s beliefs, neither having much interest in being respectful toward the other’s passion.
The focal plot showcases the breaking point: the cancerous illness of their daughter Maybelle (Nell Cattrysse), who showers the marriage with as much positive warmth as she can muster. A heart-wrenching romance between Didier and Elise plays around the set of their modern tragedy, testing their love for one another with their comprehension of reality. The remaining cast of a few family members and bluegrass musicians supports but leaves the heavy emotions and significant thematic messages to Didier and Elise’s marital character studies.
It’s fortunate that the two are helplessly interesting subjects – Didier is a scruffy, America-loving atheist, fervent about the life of his daughter, whose existence he was initially taken aback by, and Elise is a heavily tattooed woman of faith who begins serving as the angelic vocal lead in Didier’s band. Each of them find their most attractive features alongside their biggest faults by the film’s end, but not without letting the beauty of their marriage soak in through the passing years onscreen.
Whether or not the film’s source material holds the same grace in its stage setting, Van Groeningen provides a stellar directional service to the ups and downs of love, carefully evoking each scene with as much emotional depth as theoretically possible without making the maneuvers seem old. The parallels between hopefulness and haunting struggle are easily apparent, but only serve as curiously refreshing when they are not expectedly hidden behind metaphors and disdain.
Granted, the disdain comes later. After a wondrously soul-stirring first half, “The Broken Circle Breakdown” succumbs to the political and religious messages that it is inevitably aiming for, resorting to a few awkward, overly dramatic scenes between the characters and their uncomfortable audience. Those present are forced to determine between Didier and Elise who appears to be the victor, themselves very unsure post-chaos.
“The Broken Circle Breakdown,” as a result, often feels formulaic, scripting as many dark scenes with quiet moments of solemn sobriety as a romance can substantially summon. Yet Van Groeningen finds a loophole in the often-misguided genre, juxtaposing a reliance on sorrow with exciting flashbacks, leaving an enthralling serenity around the joy the couple once had dancing and singing to songs that so properly fit, or contrast, their future dispositions.
One of the biggest assets that “The Broken Circle Breakdown” receives is its soundtrack, frequently featured by Didier’s fictional band, a Mumford & Sons-esque gang of bearded harmonizers. Music is prevalent enough that, given an equal presence, the source material could have easily taken the label of musical rather than play. A medley of timeless folk songs are covered at length, some by Didier’s crooning, baritone country drawl, some by Elise’s delicate, surprisingly talented, grasp at striking high notes.
The tale of young romance and ailing children has been done countless times before, but “The Broken Circle Breakdown” provides a rich take on the heavy-handedness that other films hesitate to go toward. All of its heartbreak is boldly asked for, and honestly earned, with a successful presentation of the toil and excitement of both love and music.