Breathe
Contemporary World Cinema
Seemingly all actors want to be able to direct, so it’s often a pleasant when they turn out to be pretty decent at it. Breathe is a slow burn of a movie that sneaks up on you with some pretty dark stuff.
Charlie and Sarah (Joséphine Japy & Lou de Laâge) both very popular high school girls, but for very different reasons. One is a straight laced polite girl who’s drawn to the wild new girl and they grow closer, sharing their deepest, darkest secrets. For Charlie it’s exciting, but before long, their relationship changes, and that’s when things start to get scary.
It’s a lazy comparison to put Breathe in the same category as Blue Is The Warmest Color, but co-writer and director Mélanie Laurent puts together a uniquely tense film that sets a slow burning narrative going at deliberate but satisfying pace. Laurent tackles the issues of high school, bullying and the obsession of young love. Japy as Charlie plays her part great as an emotionally grounded young women who gets sucked into something way over her head. She keeps it calm and balanced and gives us a crazy ride as we watch her slowly go over the edge. Meanwhile Lou de Laâge maxes out the tortured wild child vibe that makes her performance pretty amazing to watch, solid and scary at the same time. (Dave Voigt)
Screens
Tuesday, September 9th, 6:30 PM, Scotiabank 4
Thursday ,September 11th, 11:45 AM, TIFF Bell Lightbox 3
Saturday, September 13th, 9:15 AM, Scotiabank Theatre 9
Thanks to SPiN TORONTO for sponsoring our TIFF 2014 coverage.