★★★★☆

Doing for the late English singer-songwriter Marianne Faithfull what they did for Nick Cave in 2014’s 20,000 Days on Earth, Broken English (2025) finds filmmakers Iain Forsyth and Jane Pollard in inventive form once again, using the artifice of an Orwellian ‘Ministry of Not Forgetting’ to delve back into the life and times of the Swinging Sixties icon, or “Mick Jagger’s ex-girlfriend – fuck that!” as she is playfully referred to in the film’s introduction.

Forsyth and Pollard’s novel approach seeks to strip down the layers of myth and media packaging around Faithfull’s discovery by Andrew Loog Oldham and propulsion into the showbiz spotlight as both a pop and folk singer, led by George MacKay’s inquisitive Record Keeper and a host of other celebrity cameos (including Tilda Swinton’s Overseer, Sophia Di Martino and Zawe Ashton). Musicians past and present discuss Faithfull’s lasting influence within atmospherically-lit recording booths, while archive footage of her rubbing shoulders with Bob Dylan, Joan Baez and Allen Ginsberg are delicately interspersed.

The film finds Faithfull in rueful reflection over her health (“I hate what’s happened to me”), which has all-but stopped her from performing, but balances this melancholy tone by reminding the audience – and Faithfull herself – of just how large and impact she had on the cultural scene of the time and those around her. A philosophical figure, Faithfull used her profile and platform to discuss societal collapse and institutionalised misogyny, even when that brought her into direct conflict with the British tabloid press (after a notorious police raid on the home of Rolling Stones guitarist Keith Richards in Redlands, Sussex) and the release/ban of the song Sister Morphine.

Forsyth and Pollard’s film takes its title from Faithfull’s 1979 album of the same name, Broken English, which allowed the singer to “finally [do] something for myself”. And yet interviews in the press largely continued to fixate on her past addiction and sexual relationships, something that clearly still irked her right to the very end (Fuck ’em!”). Faithfull does muster the energy to do one last thing for herself, closing out Broken English alongside Nick Cave and Warren Ellis with a beautiful, heartbreaking rendition of “Misunderstanding” – a fitting dénouement to an essential portrait of one of music’s most alluring enigmas.

Visit the BFI London Film Festival page to delve deeper into the wealth of films on show this year.

Daniel Green