PLAY MOVIES SIMON’S BREATH OF FRESH AIR

a little while now, it’s been known that The Mentalist star Simon Baker has been adapting Tim Winton’s beloved novel Breath into a film.

It’s the Australian actor’s debut as a feature film director and, as if that wasn’t pressure enough, Baker also felt the burden that comes with putting a cherished story on to the big screen.

“For the years it took to make the film, people would say: ‘ You’re making a film of that book Breath, that’s my favourite book. Don’t stuff it up’,” Baker said. “So I’d like a dollar for every person who said that to me.”

The pressure has been relieved somewhat as Baker has been receiving positive reviews since the film premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival.

Set in the 1970s, the film follows two teenage boys, Pikelet and Loonie, played Samson Coulter and Ben Spence, who are taken under the wing of an enigmatic older surfer, Sando ( Baker).

“There was always Sando figures in my life and they were all well intended but not everybody’s a perfect role model,” Baker said.

Largely shot in the WA coastal town of Denmark, the film indulges in long dramatic shots of the ocean, as surfing takes centre stage as much as the boys’ coming- of- age does.

But Baker also worked at portraying Winton’s themes of masculinity and the expectations young men often put upon themselves, and how the writer subverted that expectation through this story.