Director Anthony Minghella is the Sir David Lean of his generation. While the subtle artistry and grand scope of such films as The English Patient, The Talented Mr. Ripley and Cold Mountain are undeniable, many have questioned what, if anything, the director has to say about today’s world. Minghella’s latest offering, Breaking and Entering, sees him attack the complexities of contemporary urban living with admirable vigour. His return to original screenwriting is an intelligent, if sometimes torpid, exploration of desire, self-deception, the immigrant experience and the difficulties facing urban planning.

Will Francis (Jude Law) is a hip, young architect whose company, Green Effect, is redeveloping London’s grimy, polyglot Kings Cross neighbourhood. His venture uses all the right language, but it suffers from an all-too-familiar desire to write (like “calligraphy,” Will says) over the neighbourhood, rather than acknowledge its existing character. When the project’s well-intentioned bubble is shattered by two back-to-back break-ins, Will decides to stake out the office. When he spots Miro (Rafi Gavron), an acrobatic young traceur in the robbers’ employ, Will chases the boy all the way to his flat in a now-decrepit modernist council estate—the remains of another generation’s urban design dreams.

Will doesn’t report the boy to the police. Instead, after learning that Miro’s mother, Amira (Juliette Binoche), is a tailor, he arrives at her door the following day with a frayed jacket. He’s not entirely sure why he’s there, but gradually begins to lust after the woman. Will’s relationship with Liv, (Robin Wright Penn), his live-in Swedish-American girlfriend, has soured since her daughter’s autism became more severe. Feeling emotionally closed off from Liv, Will yearns to connect with something outside of his sphere. While Amira is intensely attracted to Will, she also questions his motives. And her son’s future—which Will holds in his hands—is at stake. She reluctantly resorts to blackmail, in one of the most haunting and nuanced moments Binoche has ever summoned.

Though its pacing is often overly ponderous, Breaking and Entering holds numerous rewards for the patient viewer. Law nails his effete, self-deluded, spineless cipher to a T (again); Wright Penn delivers an understated but heartbreaking performance; Benoît Delhomme’s camera finds stunning beauty in the construction sites and developments of north London; and Gabriel Yared’s score is perfectly suited to a world where motivations are keenly felt but difficult to grasp.

What Breaking and Entering won’t give you, however, is anything warm to cling to at its conclusion. Minghella’s film is cynical to the core. Its characters are either dangerously self-deluded or completely closed off. Even when Will is meant to be confessing his adultery, his words ring hollow. To Minghella, people don’t always learn their lessons, and tomorrow isn’t necessarily going to be a brighter day. What does this mean for the types of urban developments that Breaking and Entering explores? In the end, we’re not entirely sure. Those who prefer their patience to be rewarded with catharsis will want to look elsewhere.

Breaking and Entering is now playing at the Cumberland (159 Cumberland St.), the Shepherd Centre Grande (4861 Yonge St.) and the Winston Churchill 24 (2081 Winston Park Dr.)