Plot
When a foreign exchange student arrives in a small upstate New York town, she challenges the dynamics of her host family's relationships and alters their lives forever.
Release Year: 2013
Rating: 6.5/10 (3,364 voted)
Director:Drake Doremus
Storyline
When a foreign exchange student arrives in a small upstate New York town, she challenges the dynamics of her host family's relationships and alters their lives forever.
Filming Locations: Terminal 4, JFK International Airport, Jamaica, Queens, New York City, New York, USA
Technical Specs
Runtime:
Did You Know?
Trivia:
Although Felicity Jones depicts a high school teenager in this film, she was actually 27-28 when it was filmed and 30 when it was released in the US. See more »
Quotes:
User Review
Author:
Rating: 9/10
Unhappily married man falls for beautiful woman half his age whom he
believes will free him from his imaginary prison: this plot has been
done so many times, very rarely with any creativity or passion, and so
Drake Doremus' latest addition to the anthology, Breathe In, doesn't
inspire much excitement at first glance. But Doremus successfully
sidesteps the staple clichés of the infidelity drama and has crafted an
oddly delicate, taut, and surgical film that captivates and succeeds in
spite of a few minor plot conveniences.
Keith Reynolds (Guy Pearce) is an ex-guitarist whose passions and
hobbies have been stifled in favor of a suffocating teaching job and a
quiet home life in a New York suburb with wife Megan (Amy Ryan) and
daughter Lauren (Mackenzie Davis, a real find). During Lauren's senior
year of high school, the family hosts pleasant but guarded exchange
student Sophie (Felicity Jones), whose presence chips away at an
evidently already fragile marriage and Keith's resentfully upheld
responsibilities.
Doremus' breakthrough picture Like Crazy (also starring Jones) drew its
fair share of detractors for its unconvincing plot developments and
shockingly naive characters. He still doesn't have a complete handle on
how to let plots develop organically, and Keith and Sophie are
destructive and weak-willed if not naive, but Doremus is clearly
growing as a writer: the bumps are less jarring, the characters more
understandable. Breathe In is expertly precise and poetically delicate:
sensational arguments and wild sex scenes are excluded in favor of
subtle tremors in relationship dynamics and a tentative, genuine mental
connection between the two leads. A plot line that lends itself easily
to melodrama is instead executed with restraint and grace: Keith and
Sophie don't even kiss until over an hour into the film and instead
grow closer through fleeting glances, shared passions, mutual desires
to break free, and support and curiosity that neither have received
from another person in a very long time. Refreshingly, for once, it's
not at all about sex - it is sensual, but the leads connect on a
profound, intimate level rather than a physical one and, strangely
enough, there are times when you can't help but want them to be
together.
Pearce gives his best performance in years here as vulnerable and
secretly needy Keith; he perfectly captures the crushing regret and
childish idealism of a midlife crisis, and his slow unraveling at
Sophie's touch is beautiful to watch. Jones, for the third year in a
row, deserves some serious attention for her work here - Sophie is a
stereotypical faux-intellectual, confident she sees all and knows all,
and Jones retains that adolescent conceit while imbuing her with a
deep, affecting loneliness and pain and a quiet but steely veneer
masking it from the world. It's less showy, but more intricate and
adult than her work in Like Crazy. Mackenzie Davis' first major movie
role is pretty demanding and full of pitfalls, yet she creates the most
sympathetic character in the film. Amy Ryan unfortunately isn't given
much to do, and occasionally her character feels uncomfortable
villainized, but she gives Jones a look at the end of the film that
says much more than a 10- minute screaming scene ever could and
confirms that she is one of the most insightful and communicative
actresses around. There's not much dialogue in the film, and most of it
is layered with subtext rather than explicitly revealing, so a great
deal of responsibility falls on the cast's shoulders, and they more
than carry their weight.
Critics of Like Crazy probably won't be won over by Breathe In as in
terms of direction, style and writing it follows many of the same
formulas - a simple piano score, natural and unaffected cinematography,
many close-ups and scenes where nothing at all is communicated
verbally. The characters are less likable this time, and while they are
more fleshed out and therefore easier to relate to, it's difficult to
find someone to root for. But Doremus is maturing: there's less
reliance on plot contrivances to move the story along, and instead he
lets the tiny fissures, the soundless sensuality, and the growing
tension drive the film to its explosive and agonizing finale. There is
some great character- and dynamic-building here, and once Doremus has a
better grasp of storytelling, he will really be a force to be reckoned
with.
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