Director – Stefon Bristol, Screenplay – Doug Simon, Producers – David Haring, Christian Mercuri, Basil Iwanyk & Eric Lee, Photography – Felipe Vara De Rey, Music – Isabella Summers, Visual Effects Supervisor – Ned Wilson, Visual Effects – Brainstorm Digital (Supervisor – Glenn Allen), Special Effects Supervisor – Patrick “Squares” White, Production Design – Jeremy Reed. Production Company – Thunder Road Films/Capstone Studios.
Cast
Jennifer Hudson (Maya), Quvenzhane Wallis (Zora), Milla Jovovich (Tess), Sam Worthington (Lucas), Common (Darius Hutton), Raul Castillo (Micah), Dan Martin (Mike), James Saito (The Man)
Plot
The year 2039. Oxygen supplies on Earth have been depleted to almost zero. In the ruins of New York City, Darius Hutton, a former physicist, has built a shelter with an oxygen regeneration system where he lives with his father, his wife Maya and teenage daughter Zora. Darius’s father is killed in a building collapse during a sortie for supplies. Darius goes out to retrieve his body but fails to return. Maya and Zora continue on their own. Zora uses an old CB radio in an effort to communicate with her father. They are interrupted by three people led by Tess who claim to be from another shelter where the oxygen regenerator is dying. Tess says she is a former student of Darius and wants to study the regenerator to repair their own. Maya is distrustful of letting them in. This blows up into a fight between both sides over being able to get inside the shelter, where Tess dangles letting Maya know what happened to Darius.
Breathe was the second film from African-American filmmaker Stefon Bristol. Prior to this, Bristol had made the time travel film See You Yesterday (2019), based on his earlier short film.
Cli-fi or Climate Fiction has become a growing new SF niche in recent years, beginning with works such as Waterworld (1995) through The Day After Tomorrow (2004) and a good many since. I have these listed under the themes of Environmentalism and Global Warming. Amid this, Breathe creates a reasonable scenario – Earth without oxygen and the struggle of those remaining to survive. The sole film that ends up being similar to this was Io (2019) where almost all of the air on the surface of the Earth but for a few mountain peaks has become toxic.
On the other hand, I do have an issue with the film’s premise of all oxygen supplies on Earth being reduced to almost none. The big question would be – what would replace the oxygen content in the air? If you took all or most of the oxygen out of the atmosphere, you would simply end up with thinner air and lowered air pressure, not dissimilar to Mars which has an atmosphere that is 0.13% oxygen, meaning that a heavy storm has little more force that a mild breeze. However, in that people are shown walking around normally outside and that we see sparks, this does not seem to be the case. It is science that seems to exist in a handwave vacuum made up for the film’s premise.
(l to r) Mother Jennifer Hudson and daughter Quvenzhane Wallis defend the survival shelteMilla Jovovich tries to break in the shelter
Stefon Bristol sets the whole of Breathe around the battle for getting into the survival shelter. Here he generates some reasonable tensions – between who is in control, who overthrows who and especially when a psychotic Sam Worthington gets loose at the end. The film has a more than reasonable cast line-up. The film headlines Jennifer Hudson, who emerged into a singing career after appearing as a contestant on American Idol (2002- ) and then won an Oscar for Showgirls (2006). On the other hand, Hudson seems unsuited or to not even really understand the type of film she is in. Her performance is all harsh and hot-headed anger, which seems to belong in another type of film, not the survival work we have here. Milla Jovovich is used to this type of thing through assorted Resident Evil outings. It is surprising to see Sam Worthington take a villainous turn, although his performance ends up being kneecapped by a severely distracting, fake-looking long-haired wig.
The film looks good with the exteriors shot like a desert landscape and some good visual effects shots of a devastated city. Did the film leave you feeling like you were thrown into the midst of a bared-to-the-fingertips struggle for life and death? No, it merely looks like a slightly better cast After the Holocaust survival film. At which you have to give Breathe and okay marks but also say that it is nothing that is earth-shatteringly original in its treatment.
