BREAKING NIKKI – Hernan Findling

A hole in a grating, unique glimmer to take breath from and try and watch the outside world. This is the destiny Devon brought a woman to … Susan, his ex wife. Nikki steps into Devon’s house, to satisfy a human being’s perversion, and she soon finds herself playing the ex wife’s role wearing her clothes and make up. In a sort of sick mental imprinting Devon tries to transform Nikki into Susan, pointing her out the same fate.

The first sexual intercourse should unleash Devon, but the unnatural identification of the prostitute drags him rapidly towards the changing of the desider, from sexual to obsessive. The unsatisfaction bringing him to desire the ex wife though having Nikki in front of him changes into rough greed, finding some satisfaction only in Nikki’s suffering.

The more the woman refuses to be Susan, the more the violence raises, wearing her resistance out and violating her body directly in the flesh, not in the sexuality. BREAKING NIKKI is a path through suffering, nothing particularly original but with a plot always appealing for torture movies fans. The good performance of the cast (especially the main charachter Maria Ines Alonso) underlines dramatic elements usually unexpressed in other similar movies.

The two biggest flaws in this movie directed by Herman Findling are the slowness in the events roll out, because of a lack in scripting spurts, and the absence of a erotic charge only whispered but never busted out, in a movie where the female body gets little undressed and martyrized never letting the shiver of the sexual tension flow. BREAKING NIKKI is a gloomy and violent movie but to be seen by the genre’s fans. A different editing, able to play with times and bodies without losing development clearness would’ve helped.

RANK: 5.5/10

Directed by: Hernan Findling
Producer: Hernan Findling, Martin Lahaye, Gabriel Lahaye
Screenplay by: Hernan Findling, German Val, Nicanor Loreti
Editing: Guille Gatti
Music: Jose Komesu
Cast: Veronica Mari, Maria Ines Alonso, Oliver Kolker, Maxime Segue
Argentina, 2008

[translated by Elisa Clava]