Friday, 27 October 2017

FILM: Breathe (dir: Andy Serkis, 2017)

"That was different!"

The 'based on true events' biopic genre now feels well established, and Breathe ticks all the conventions boxes, right down to the footage of the real couple and the life updates at the end of the film.  In many ways, however, Breathe is almost less about a polio victim's battle to gain some sort of quality of life than it is a genuine (and, as the song says) true love story.  Andrew Garfield again proves to be a truly versatile actor, conveying positivity in the harshest of personal circumstances and often wordlessly (in a far more sincere way than Redmayne's acting exercises of The Theory Of Everything), and Claire Foy gives one of her best turns that is an exemplary character performance of devotion, defiance and love, with strong smaller supporting performances that catch the eye from Ed Speleers and Amit Shah.  Serkis also delivers very well with his first directorial effort, contrasting the natural vistas of Africa and Europe with the confines of hospitalisation, in particular a jawdropping scene in a German clinic.  With the surviving family's strong involvement, Breathe comes across less an airbrushed bit of Sunday-evening revisionism and more a truly life-affirming slice of positivity that is a testament to its two central performers.

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