Movie Review: Breathe

Breathe * ½ / *****

Directed by: Andy Serkis.

Written by: William Nicholson.

Starring: Andrew Garfield (Robin Cavendish), Claire Foy (Diana Cavendish), Hugh Bonneville (Teddy Hall), Ed Speleers (Colin Campbell), Tom Hollander (Bloggs/David Blacker), Ben Lloyd-Hughes (Dr. Don McQueen), Miranada Raison (Mary Dawney), Camilla Rutherford (Katherine Robertson).

 

At the risk of sounding like a heartless asshole, I have to admit that my least favorite genre of movies is probably the inspirational biopic about the person who lived with a disability, and fought hard anyway – accomplishing more in their life despite their disability, than most of us ever will. Even the best film the genre has ever produced – probably Jim Sheridan’s My Left Foot, with its Oscar winning performances by Daniel Day-Lewis and Brenda Fricker – is merely a film I really like, rather than love. That film made the daring choice to portray its main character as an asshole – and yet, you still root for him regardless of that. Most of the films though are more like Breathe – a dull British biopic about Robin Cavendish, who in the late 1950s was struck down with polio, but bravely fought the disease for decades – only dying in the early 1990s. During his life, he was a tireless advocate for disabled rights – helping to invent wheelchairs to allow them to go outside of hospitals, and advocating not locking them up like prisoners.

 

In the film, Cavendish is played by Andrew Garfield – a fine actor, who has really come into his own in the past few years, but who is mainly undone by a role that forces him to be so damn noble for most of the runtime. His ever supportive wife, Diana, is played by Claire Foy – who refuses to give up on her husband, and keeps on pushing him and pushing him to get better, until he relents, and goes along with her. Foy is fine in the role, although there isn’t much there other than determination.

 

Not much happens in Breathe. I kept kind of waiting for the movie to start, for the story to kick in, but it never really happens. Robin is struck down very early in the film, and after about 20 minutes of him wanting to die, he reverses course, and becomes the advocate he would be the rest of his life. It climaxes with a big speech at a conference for the disabled in the early 1970s – where Robin was the only disabled person there – but then the film keeps on chugging along for another 20 minutes or so, grimly following him towards death. I suppose that was a somewhat daring choice – most of these movies don’t like to address the final moments, but this one does. It doesn’t add much though.

 

The film is the directorial debut of Andy Serkis – one of the few actors who can legitimately claim to have changed onscreen acting forever with his work in The Lord of the Rings, King Kong and Planet of the Apes movies. As a filmmaker, he plays everything safe here, filming everything in soft light, and avoiding any kind of conflict or drama. That choice is deadly to a film already in a deadly dull genre. It’s hard to be too mad at Breathe – it lulls you to sleep more than riles your blood.