What a beautiful movie!

Excellent, a Must See

It's fun, it's light, [but] it has a hard time when its tries to get heavy.

an ambitious but ultimately ineffective debut endeavor.

Here it is, 2012, and I just watched Breaking Glass, though I actually recognize a couple of the songs (possible I was listening to the movie at another time in my life).This movie, cheesy and spunky and rough around the edges, but what a fun time I had watching it. The music transported me back to when I was fresh out of high school, in the Navy, going to clubs in NY, Chicago, Orlando and Seattle with my buds and listening to this style of music everywhere. How I love the punk and post-punk era. Some of the best music was came from the UK during this time.The movie was the perfect anecdote for artistic exploitation amidst unrest, racism and rampant abuse by authorities. I loved the emotion and terror of the scene with the rioting skinheads and Kate singing Blackman.Still the best scenes were reserved for the performances (dubbed, but who cares). I was overwhelmed by the performance of Eigth Day. Superb in every way.I just can't believe it took me this long to see it!

I acquired this, one of my all-time favourite films on DVD recently and as usual, during viewing, the whole thing just blew me away.I am a massive fan of Hazel O'Connor and the soundtrack to this film just has me in tears, especially the "Will You" track. It's a pure nostalgia trip for me back to my youth. This rates second best to Quadrophenia (which also starred Phil Daniels).A great soundtrack and a great view of Britain in the Thatcherite years of the grim 80's in which I grew up. The ending is so sad, for hours after the end of the film I am like a blubbering baby.I expect to wear out this DVD from repeated viewing, I can watch it over and over again and never be bored, simply for the soundtrack alone.Hazel, sorry to hear about your dad darling. God Bless you all. xx

Low budget Brit pop melodrama focuses on a girl who wants to be a star, becomes one and then finds it all a bit too much. Good cast and a sense of time and place cannot hide the fact that we have all been here before. Several scenes are a bit hysterical and O'Connor's voice sounds a lot like Mini Mouse! She disappeared from sight soon after making this movie - so life can imitated art! A must see if you want to see a punk version of a Star Is Born though.

Very much a political commentary on the disenfranchisement of youth and accurately summing up the feelings of the under 20s at that time, if not the reality.The film was made just after the nation had suffered 'The Winter of Discontent' the final humiliation of the disastrous socialist government that had destroyed the aspirations and job prospects of a generation. This also led to the famous election of the far-right Thatcher government at the same time, but, they had not been in office for long enough to affect the approach of the film.I saw the film at the time it was first shown, and being a punk and having a father that was a trade union leader at the time, much of what was portrayed in the film was familiar to me.Although the film was very much trying to be a 'grim Northern realism' film for the 80s (and set in the south at that!), it was pure fantasy - things were never that bad, and it's easy to get depressed about situations that are portrayed as every-day occurrences that either never happened or were rare. The scenes of race riots are particularly overstated.The music of the film, however, is it's strongest area. It is absolutely of its time, and completely representative. It is so classic that "In the beginning..." was being played in a country pub that I was in only last week (9/99) nearly 20 years later. What followed was 'New Wave' with 'Duran Duran' and others - what a disaster!Given the slow degradation of the main character over the duration of the film, it is interesting to see what happened the the actress who played her (Hazel O'Connor) in real life. Life imitating art?