It’s a shame when you find a good idea in a movie and once the credits roll you’re left sitting in your seat sharing the bucket of popcorn with indifference. Sometimes, we come across these proposals that, although they start off strongly and promise to take us to unknown terrain, they dissipate along the way, leaving us with a feeling of waste. It is the case of Breathethe latest foray into science fiction starring the charismatic Jovovich milewhich, despite having an interesting plot starting pointunfortunately fails to reach its full potential.
A dull post-apocalyptic future
The plot of Respira immerses us in a devastated world, where the lack of oxygen and the extinction of plant life have turned the Earth into an inhospitable place. In the midst of this desolate landscape, we follow the story of a prep family fighting to survive in a bunker, facing the challenges of a hostile environment. Their monotonous survival is broken with the arrival of a group of strangers who endanger your safety. However, what begins as a promising premise soon fades into an inconsistent narrative lacking depth. I don’t know if it’s fair to ask more from the big screen film debut of Stefon Bristol.
Sam Worthington and Milla Jovovich
The movie is not bad, but not good either. And that seems to me to be a much worse problem than getting a negative response, since at least that means that there has been an effort to create some kind of reaction. Whichever. The beginning of this story is tremendously promising, with a carefully designed setting and a group of protagonists that arouse our curiosity. However, as the plot progresses, it is impossible not to notice a certain lack of work developing characters’ motivations or personalities beyond the superficial. Even the plot twists and surprises parade across the screen with a worrying smell of indifferenceleaving the viewer bewildered and detached from what is happening on screen.
An untapped drama
It is curious how Respira puts a lot of good ideas on the table that it tries and develops with a palpable lack of pulse. Either due to a failed attempt to naturalize them within the development of the plot, or due to clumsiness in taking advantage of them on screen in a way that is cinematically interesting. The result is a film that fails to connect emotionally with the viewer. It’s not a bummer, but it’s not exciting either. Although the premise of oxygen shortages and the fight for survival could have been explored more intensely and harrowingly, the film opts for a more tempered and ultimately less shocking approach. Not a bad first choice., but it fails to justify that decision with a dramatic load with enough punch. So what the drama and trauma is therebut if it doesn’t explode, I don’t know, unless cars explode, or aliens come, or any other artificial and typically Hollywood resource. I don’t know, something.
Jennifer Hudson and Milla Jovovich
It’s a shame that the overacting one has to be singled out. Sam Worthington (protagonist of Avatar), whose character perhaps aims to be that dramatic shock, that engine of chaos in the plot that calls for uncertainty. Unfortunately, at times it is as exaggerated as unnatural and artificial in a monotone film in which that unjustified histrionics that contributes so little to the plot has nothing to do with it. To compensate, I have to highlight very positively the work of Jennifer Hudson and Quvenzhané Wallis. If something is especially interesting in the film, it is their mother and daughter relationship.
An ending without personality
While is true that Respira has very enjoyable moments and manages to maintain the viewer’s interest throughout much of its footage, all the accumulated enthusiasm it dilutes at the end. Perhaps we are so accustomed to negative and depressing futuristic scenarios in which science fiction is a pessimistic warning, that when the genre tries to reach out to some hope, It seems completely bland and boring to us..
Jennifer Hudson and Quvenzhané Wallis
Respira undoubtedly deserves a viewing and reflection, but its lack of intensity relegates it to the realm of the anecdotal.
And it is not so much a problem of the evident environmental spirit of the film, but of a “good vibes” of familiar overtones that, given the social and political panorama that is drawn on the horizon of the real world, it seems completely naive. If anyone doubts that the future that is coming to us is more Max Max than utopia, please let them look at the front pages of the world’s main newspapers. Breathe is undoubtedly worth a viewing and reflection.but the lack of intensity in a film that should be drowning you at all times relegates it to the realm of the anecdotal.
It’s a shame that this movie ended up falling into the “not bad” box, especially considering the potential it had to deliver a striking and memorable movie experience, even with the same elements. Simply, we have to get a little more out of them. If you want to give it a try, Respira opens in theaters on June 14.
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