3 Short Paragraphs (Or Not): Breathe

2024, Stefan Bristol (See You Yesterday) -- download

Kent saw his previous film, which is on My List. Kent spoke very positively about it, but I have a feeling he wouldn't be as generous with this one. When I was downloading the movie, a po-ap thriller about the planet after all the oxygen goes away (by way of apocalypses, that is not new, but usually they are far future, not "20 minutes from now") and focuses on a single family living in Brooklyn with their oxygen generator, the first comment I came across complained about it being a black movie. The family is black, and the Bad Guys are white. That's all the commenter saw, and that made it a terrible movie. There are lots of reasons to dismiss the movie but.... really, white fragility? Come on Racist Internet, make more effort.

Yes, this a "black movie", in that it takes a bit more care in presenting the characters -- they are not just generic Americans living an interchangeable life with any other (non-black) generic Americans. I am not going to comment too much on what that says, but the creator does create these characters from their own experience. And yet, its clear enough that is not all that the movie is about. I mean, its pretty fucking obvious this is a post-apocalyptic movie about a single family trying to survive a terrible existence against untrustworthy foes. The problem is that aspect of the movie is so very very generic and mundane.

The movie starts with Dad (Common, Wanted) and Grampa out hunting for supplies, and Grampa ducks into bookstore to grab something for his granddaughter. The world outside is not only absent of oxygen but something else has happened leaving everything under a dusty, burnt umber coloured sky, buildings crumbling, all the water gone as well. Meanwhile Mom is planting seeds and arguing with her Daughter -- they have a contentious relationship refereed by Dad. Unfortunately Grampa falls through the floor of the bookstore and dies, and Dad wants to deliver him to Grandma's grave. He never returns.

Months later, Maya (Jennifer Hudson, Dreamgirls) and Zora (Quvenzhané Wallis, Beasts of the Southern Wild) are still constantly arguing, while Zora spends her evenings on a ham radio talking to Dad -- she misses him intently. And then the Bad Guys show up -- other survivors in their oxygen masks, carrying guns, demanding to be let into the hidden, well enforced shelter. They claim to be from another shelter in nearby Phily where their oxygen generator is breaking down, and their spokesperson Tess (Milla Jovovich, Hellboy) knew Dad, and is asking for his help. From the get go, there is no reason to trust their yelling, gun toting, threatening asses. 

There is a brief hint we could be sympathetic to these crazy, desperate people, but nope, they are just trope-driven antagonists. This is where the movie just falls flat, as all the characters are very cardboard. Only Zora seems to have any chance on coming out as a real character. She's smarter, probably smarter than Dad the Genius Engineer. But she is still a teen and always fighting with Maya, suffering isolation and loneliness and probably more than a little defeatist depression. But Maya is a classic hardass helicopter mom, and it takes the violent interaction of three interlopers to understand the need to be more connected to her daughter. 

There is very little world building, no idea of what happened to it, and yet, also not enough real character driven elements to make this movie compelling. In the end I am not sure what was driving it, what was motivating it, what did it hope to accomplish other than the effort of making another movie, telling another story, and apparently, I am OK with that ?

Fuck, what I am not OK with is the fucking terrible movie posters than are completely focused on "recognizable faces". I chose this one for the colour pattern, but not a single poster even had Zora's face, and all of them made Milla's the biggest, even though her role is next to nil. I think, technically, she might have more lines than Bad Guy #2 (Sam Worthington, Simulant) but nothing significant. And its depressing that she ended up being the name for the movie.