Breathe
Directed by: Andy Serkis
Written by: William Nicholson
Starring: Andrew Garfield, Claire Foy, Tom Hollander, Hugh Bonneville, Stephen Mangan, Miranda Raison, Ed Speleers, Amit Shah, Jonathan Hyde, Dean-Charles Chapman, David Wilmot, Diana Rigg, Tom Turner, Emily Bevan
Biography/Drama/Romance - 117 min Reviewed by Charlie Juhl on 18 Oct 2017
Written by: William Nicholson
Starring: Andrew Garfield, Claire Foy, Tom Hollander, Hugh Bonneville, Stephen Mangan, Miranda Raison, Ed Speleers, Amit Shah, Jonathan Hyde, Dean-Charles Chapman, David Wilmot, Diana Rigg, Tom Turner, Emily Bevan
Biography/Drama/Romance - 117 min Reviewed by Charlie Juhl on 18 Oct 2017
How far we’ve come in the care of the severely disabled. In 2012, The Sessions showed audiences how poet and journalist, but polio-afflicted, Mark O’Brien hired a sex surrogate to experience intimate situations. According to Andy Serkis’s Breathe, O’Brien owes all of that freedom and opportunity to the groundbreaking struggle of Robin and Diana Cavendish. Struck down by polio in his prime, Robin and Diana fought the stunted British medical system, commissioned technological innovations, and opened the world’s eyes to the idea there just may be life after affliction.
Opening with a “what follows is true” label, Breathe is part biopic and part drama, but most of all wants its audience to feel uplifted and admiring of that can do British spirit. For, in England, what do you get when the man is put asunder? A steadfast woman with a steel constitution! In The Theory of Everything, Breathe’s closest cinematic sibling, Jane Hawking brushed aside advice and warnings of how hard it would be to care for wheelchair-bound Stephen. She loved him and that was that. Diana Cavendish was cut from the same mold.
Opening with a “what follows is true” label, Breathe is part biopic and part drama, but most of all wants its audience to feel uplifted and admiring of that can do British spirit. For, in England, what do you get when the man is put asunder? A steadfast woman with a steel constitution! In The Theory of Everything, Breathe’s closest cinematic sibling, Jane Hawking brushed aside advice and warnings of how hard it would be to care for wheelchair-bound Stephen. She loved him and that was that. Diana Cavendish was cut from the same mold.
Robin (Andrew Garfield, Silence) gave Diana all the permission and shoves out the door he could muster while laying immobile on his back hooked up to a breathing apparatus. He was no good for her anymore, the doctor said he wasn’t going to live very much longer, and most of all, Robin wanted to die. Not good enough for Diana (Claire Foy, Rosewater). She is a British lady, in love with her husband; therefore, there is no argument. Now, how can we improve our situation?
Plot-wise, Diana’s twin brothers (Tom Hollander, Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation) help out with logistics and kind words. Hugh Bonneville (The Monuments Men) pops around every now and again as inventor Teddy Hall, the man who fashioned a wheelchair containing Robin’s breathing machine. With Robin and Diana thoroughly shocking the polio ward at their hospital, whose attending physician assured them Robin would be dead within two weeks due to their recklessness, Robin left the hospital and remained at home for the rest of his life. There were even trips to Spain and Germany as well as global attention as the Cavendish’s shined a light on their situation and proved what was possible.
According to screenwriter William Nicholson (Unbroken), in close consultation with producer Jonathan Cavendish, Robin and Diana’s son, the Germans were quite proud of the cleanliness of their polio ward with iron lungs stacked on top of one another in perfect rows. Robin saw a prison. For, the family would roll Robin outside for garden parties and even go to the beach. He brought people together; the opposite of the isolation all of his polio brethren endured every day. But this togetherness and camaraderie took time. Nicholson and Serkis do not neglect the moments Robin suffers depression and shuns his God as a joke, a joker, cursing Him for choosing this man for some mysterious purpose.
First time director Andy Serkis, famous for playing the technologically-enhanced characters Gollum in The Lord of the Rings and Caesar in the most recent Planet of the Apes trilogy, fashioned a low-budget, mid-century period piece all the way from colonial Kenya to countryside British manor. Three-time Oscar winner Director of Photography Robert Richardson (Live by Night) goes fancy with aerial shots and shadow play but the moments we really notice his handiwork is Robin’s perspective. While the camera usually looks down on Robin strapped to his gurney or in his wheelchair, sometimes the camera will take Robin’s point of view and stare at the sky or a van ceiling. It is an effective reminder that is not how we would want to see the world all day every day.
Nicholson’s screenplay plays a tad heavy with foreshadowing as someone tells a story early on of the force of one’s mind power and what it is capable of. The all-around message of ‘if you want it bad enough and stop feeling sorry for yourself, you can get it done’ will work for audiences hungry for positive themes, but otherwise, Breathe is the lesser entity compared to what The Theory of Everything so successfully pulled off in 2014. Andy Serkis proves himself capable behind the camera and Jonathan Cavendish is able to tell the world of his remarkable parents, but Breathe is a mid-range recent history with an awareness message. However, I have no doubt Mark O’Brien is quite grateful.
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