BREATHE (Andy Serkis). 118 minutes. See listing. Opens Friday (October 20). Rating: NN
The true story of Robin Cavendish, who became an advocate for the disabled after he was paralyzed by polio, becomes a very odd and frustrating drama in this consistently off-key film.
For his directorial debut, Andy Serkis – an actor best known for his compelling motion-capture performances in The Lord Of The Rings and the new Planet Of The Apes cycles, but who also spent a year and a half directing the second unit on Peter Jackson’s epic adaptation of The Hobbit – recounts Cavendish’s life with the comforting, nostalgic sheen of Call The Midwife, with Andrew Garfield stiff-upper-lipping his way through every scene so as not to upset the family.
It’s a novel approach, and its chipper affect suggests Serkis has closely studied Jackson’s Heavenly Creatures, where characters coped with adversity by plastering on cheery smiles.
But Breathe doesn’t have that film’s masterful tonal control, struggling to integrate the naturalistic performance of Claire Foy as Cavendish’s supportive wife Diana with more eccentric creative choices like the casting of Tom Hollander as a pair of jolly twins. It just doesn’t gel, and it badly needs to.
When Cavendish and his family visit a long-term care facility in Germany on their way to a conference, we get flashes of a far more complex and unsettling movie – one that really understands the psychological weight with which Serkis seems unwilling to engage. And Breathe pivots away from that as quickly as it can, switching back into inspirational mode, fooling no one.
