May
17
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Breath (2017)
Award-winning novels do not always lead to award-winning films. As we know, the novel’s unbounded imaginative space reigns free while the movie is constrained within sight and sound. The coming-of-age film Breath (2017)is beautiful to look at, but its clichéd characters and banal dialogue make it a rather ordinary translation of Tim Winton’s widely acclaimed book.
The story is framed as a middle-age nostalgic flashback to growing up in a logging village on the spectacular West Australian coastline. We follow through the eyes of a young teenager called Pikelet (Samson Coulter) who, with his aptly-named best friend Loonie (Ben Spence), are inducted into the surfing culture of the 1970s. Their dreams of conquering big waves are made real when they are befriended by a 40-something former top surfer and off-the-grid hippy called Sando (Simon Baker). He becomes their mentor, inspiring them with zen-like dogma about the mastery of one’s inner fears and the purism of doing something as pointlessly elegant as riding a dangerously large wave. Meanwhile, Sando’s surly girlfriend Eva (Elizabeth Debicki) limps around in the background with a chronic injury from top-tier competitive skiing. She is cool towards the teenagers until Sando and Loonie take off to Indonesia to chase even bigger waves, leaving young Pikelet to herself.
Sexual initiation is not always recalled through misty lens. Eva has dangerously weird taste in bed and no qualms about the boy’s lack of maturity. While the camera spends a lot of time watching them together it is never close enough to earn an 18+ rating. Pikelet finds himself between two worlds: innocent school friends on one hand, and a worldly woman who uses him as a toy on the other. It is not so different to the space between mastering a wave for fun and chasing one to prove you are not scared.
The enduring high point of Breath is its cinematography. Lush rainforests, ruggedly rocky coastlines, and white-crested rollers are captured with almost lyrical beauty. The cameras spend a lot of time on top of and under the water, and some of the wave shots can make you gasp. However,the characters are one-dimensional, the dialogue often inauthentically mystical, and there is not a trace of narrative tension. Eva remains a shadowy person and her past sporting career is barely mentioned, as women’s achievements don’t count for much in a man’s world. On the other hand, the film labours at length but simplistically over what it takes to be a man. A particularly insipid example is early in the film the two teenagers get around on under-sized kid’s BMX bicycles, but the day after Pikelet’s sexual initiation he suddenly appears on a full-size bike. Really; is that all it takes?
If Breathhas serious messages about growing up with worthwhile values, they only hang in limbo, unformed and unexplored. No doubt there will be different responses from those who read the book, those who fondly remember the 1970s, and those for whom sex and surfing is still a pathway to adulthood. If it achieves anything, it highlights how much more complex growing up is today.
Director: Simon Baker
Stars: Simon Baker, Samson Coulter, Ben Spence, Elizabeth Debicki
CineMuseFilms 
Great review! I find coming of age movies to be quite hit or miss. They either stay with me for years or I kind of forget they even exist a few months later.
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Thanks for the comment. It is a well-worn film genre but I’m sure the book explores the issues in more meaningful depth.
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Although I really enjoyed your well written review (as always) I didn’t share your take on the film, though agreeing with the fact that outstanding cinematography was the highlight.
Tim Winton’s abiding obsession with ‘toxic masculinity’ in all its manifestations, came through to me in the character of Sando. Ostensibly playing mentor and helpful friend, it soon became obvious that he had another agenda involving dubious efforts to prop up his own flagging self-esteem. His was an influence ‘for bad’ and not ‘for good’.
I cheered to myself when young Pikelet stood his ground and refused to be drawn into reckless risk taking and, in so doing, showed real courage. So too, his refusal to participate further in Eva’s dangerous antics.
Having read (and forgotten) the book years ago, I got more from the film than would normally be the case. I appreciated your response and will be watching more carefully on a second viewing when the film is released for hire. Thanks.
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Thank you for sharing your thoughts; I love hearing views that challenge my take on a film. It occurs to me that you may not have forgotten the book to the extent you believe. Your thoughtful observations about “toxic masculinity” and “reckless risk taking” suggest a depth of prior exposure to the narrative and its themes rather than a cold reading of the film. I have not the slightest doubt that a writer of Winton’s standing is well able to weave those themes into his book. My disappointment is that the film barely taps those themes, and when it does it falls onto cliches and banal dialogue as short-cuts into Winton’s thinking. The moral crux of the story is glibly glossed over in the film’s climactic moments when Pikelet declines another big wave. So much left hanging, but maybe thats the intention.
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You’re partly right, though it’s not by remembering the book all that well, but engaging in an online discussion about Tim Winton on an article in The Conversation. This sharpened my focus on Winton’s recurring themes.
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I thought that the film invited “reading between the lines” and that the dialogue was realistic. In fact, I would have been disappointed had the film “telegraphed” what it was trying to reach at, as I hate the endless stream of movies that either feel the need to explain everything in detail to an overfed audience, or just leave the viewer feeling confuzzled when the producer/editor can’t untangle the complexities of the story. I thought Breath was excellent and very representative of the novel. I thought the actors were perfectly well cast and rate this movie highly. Its been a while since I’ve seen an extremely good film (Dunkirk, actually) and Breath was it. By contrast, the movie I saw recently, that everyone raved on (3 billboards…etc), I found contrived & trite and I only watched it because it had whatshername from Fargo in the lead role (Frances McDormand?). The critics don’t always see films objectively… it’s probably hard to maintain that level of detachment. Anyway, who cares if it was true to the novel.. was it a good film?
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Thanks for weighing into the discussion with such thoughful comments. I’m guessing that most audiences who have read the novel will see more in this film than those who did not. I’m in the latter camp and would argue that it gives me an edge in objectivity (if being objective is possible at all) If a viewer has read the source text it is reasonable to assume that they bring a lot of pre-reading to the film. Anyway, I’m glad you enjoyed it and hope to hear more from you.
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The subject of toxic masculinity is something I read about in an interview with Winston, recently. I think the film captured that and I also “cheered” to myself when Pikelet stood his ground. I had the sense that his father had been there too once, and understood his son. A critic suggested that Pikelet’s parents roles were thin but I thought they were appropriately periphery in the context of a teenage boy’s journey into adulthood. It did at least match my own experience of growing up. Complete self-absorption sadly leaves little room for the support crew.
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I haven’t seen this film yet (being OS currently), but am a fan of Winton’s books (despite his difficulty with ending them satisfactorily). I think his stories, with their preoccupation with the Aussie male psyche and taciturn, often damaged loners, need a very sensitive director to bring them to life. Simon Baker may not be that director. Breathe was one of the least impressive Winton novels I have read. I’m really waiting for Dirt Music to be made into a film but both David Noyce and Gregor Jordan have been trying to get it made for years without success. I really hope Jordan can pull it off soon.
On a brighter note, the 2-part mini-series of Cloudstreet was a wonderful adaptation of Winton’s most popular book, though that had the advantage of an array of interesting women characters, which Breath does not. The film version of Winton’s In The Winter Dark was a much more somber affair, examining Winton’s themes of loneliness and isolation.
I will see Breath when I get a chance, despite Richard’s review, as I’m of course curious though now not hopeful. It was good to hear Anita’s more positive reaction as well.
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Very interesting comments ozflicks; thank you. I’m inclined to share your opinion about Breath’s director. Despite the coarseness of Aussie machismo, I agree it takes a sensitive director to deconstruct it and show its vulnerable componentry.
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In this case, Simon Baker was that director. He did a great job of it. If he made the ‘Dirt Music’ into a movie I would watch it. I saw ‘the Turning’ and was disappointed but it was really a book of loosely (& tightly) connected stories & a tough one to convert to film. I would love to see ‘That Eye the Sky’ as a movie but despite my opinion that books & films don’t need to follow each other too tightly, I would be disappointed if the movie did not capture the essence of that wonderful novel.
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I agree with you on one point and disagree on another. Film adaptations are an entirely different artistic format and high fidelity reproduction or representation of a source text is far from obligatory or even desirable sometimes. I disagree in principle about the concept of auterism. Unlike many reviewers, I take very little interest in a director’s or and actor’s prior credits. IMO, good previous films do not mean that later works are good too and so many reviews glow with the halo effect of auterism. Now that really compromises objectiivity.
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Thanks for the reply. I actually agree with you on the idea of auterism. I didn’t know what the word meant, until you explained it. But that wasn’t a point I was making. I was simply expressing my interest in seeing a movie (hypothetical at best) based on my enjoyment of the director’s previous effort. I may well be disappointed, as you suggest.
I have more interest in music than film but even there, I can’t think of one artist where I could honestly say I like everything they’ve done. But I’m always interested in hearing for myself. Sometimes it takes repeated listening before I can enjoy a piece if music I may have disliked after the first hearing.
Its a human problem…we often judge what we don’t understand but could, if we gave it more time & effort. I have written off the 3 billboards movie based on a first imoression. Maybe I was wrong… I don’t really know for sure.
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Check out my review of 3 Billboards and see if that makes any impression. Nice chatt’n to you.
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Sounds like a creepy premise. Since it doesn’t sound like the movie was all that maybe I’ll check the book out first.
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Thats one way to garantee you will not like the movie: read the book first. Thanks for your comment.
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So are you suggesting I actually watch the movie first? 🙂
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That’s the only way to consume the film on its own merits.
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