Stars ‘Breathe’ life into tale of love, loss
Another inspiring story about a brilliant man afflicted by a terrible, debilitating illness being cared for by a devoted, utterly selfless and remarkably beautiful wife, “Breathe,” which was directed by the groundbreaking motioncapture actor Andy Serkis (Gollum and Caesar the ape leader), is well done as far as it goes, especially by its leads, the screen’s former Spidey Andrew Garfield and Claire Foy of TV’s “The Crown.”
But after the Academy Awardwinning “The Theory of Everything” (2014) and the recent and less edifying Emilia Clarke vehicle “Me Before You” (2016), are we in danger of overdoing this theme and turning it into a kind of “My Left Foot” art film franchise?
Garfield is the reallife Robin Cavendish, a cricketplaying tea broker with business interests in Kenya, who in England meets and falls in love with a beautiful, pampered 1950s princess named Diana (Foy). Diana Blacker has a pair of foppish older twin brothers (both Tom Hollander), and in spite of Robin’s lack of a fortune, he lands this heroine for himself. Diana then goes with Robin to the former British colony to buy tea, and soon after Diana joyously announces her pregnancy.
But Robin comes down with a grave case of polio. He eventually is able to speak, is paralyzed from the neck down and given three months to live. But thanks to his wife’s devotion, Robin survives a plane trip back to England, where their friends and family gather around them and one, a wine enthusiast and nutty Oxford professor named Teddy Hall (Hugh Bonneville), invents a chair with a portable respirator that frees Robin and eventually all like him from the confines of their beds.
“Breathe,” which was produced by Robin and Diana’s son, Jonathan Cavendish, and scripted by veteran William Nicholson (“Everest”), revisits those flying scenes in “Out of Africa” and hits all the “disease of the week” beats. It is raised up by its talented cast and by Serkis’ semicomic take on even the worst developments, apparently inspired by Robin’s own devilish sense of humor.
There were many sniffles and eyes watering in the screening room where I saw the film, mine included. It might be worth waiting to hear Diana Rigg’s Lady Neville pronounce the words “wheezing away” in reference to Cavendish. But I could not escape the feel ing this sort of Oscarbait film has become an awardsseason cliche. Add two helpings of the Bing CrosbyGrace Kelly duet of Cole Porter’s “True Love,” and you might just have gone too far. Who would have guessed that Gollum was such a softie, my precious?