Breathe (Mélanie Laurent, 2014): France

Reviewed by Rebeca Forward. Viewed at the AFIFest 2014.

Director Mélanie Laurent did a really great job directing the film. It is shown that it’s a really typical French film, except of the ending. The setting of the film was captured really well. The film is about two teenage girls who are struggling with their life. Sarah is the new girl, very rebellious and straightforward, where Charlie is the nice high school student. They became friends, Sarah hides that her mom is an alcoholic and she feels very welcome in Charlie’s family. Charlie and her mom took Sarah to a family camping event. There are ups and downs in their friendship and after Sarah is done using Charlie she, portrays Charlie as the bad girl and the wrong influence for herself. At the end she loses her control and smashed Sarah against her bed table, Sarah starts to laugh and Charlie gets mad and choke her with a pillow. Sarah is dead at the end.

During the whole film, the film title occurs again. Charlie has asthma, when it got too stressful for her the breathing problems occurs. The director captured in her film really good the idea that there is more to life than just the little life some people are living and that there is another world out there.

I think that this was a really good movie with a surprising end, where the whole audience was at Charlie’s side and thought that Sarah just needed to shut up.