Breathe

**Spoiler Alert**

Director: Melanie Laurent/Starring: Josephine Japy, Lou de Laage, Roxane Duran and Isabelle Carre'

Melanie Laurent, renowned for her performances in front of the camera, steps behind it again for her directorial effort Breathe; which she adapted from the French novel of the same name. Laurent's compositional skills are highly conspicuous, as is her ability to coax some fine performances from her female characters. Breathe is an intriguing psychological drama; a story of head-games between two teens whose intense friendship skews toward contempt rather than mutual love and affection.

Josephine Japy plays Charlie; a student in a French high school who seems pretty much like her teen peers. Her mother and father are separated and are often engaged in rancorous displays which Charlie witnesses on a regular basis. She also sees how her mother Vanessa (Isabelle Carre') is reduced to pawn status before her father's Svengali-esque control.

In Charlie's literature class, we hear a discussion about whether passion is destructive. Many great minds are quoted, particularly Nietzsche, who once said that passion is easier to end than control. This being a French film, we know the subject of passion and its perilous effects will become a major theme in the story.

Into Charlie's life comes Sarah (Lou de Laage), a new student who immediately insinuates herself not only into the high school social life but more importantly, Charlie's. Sarah mentions to the class that her mother is in Nigeria doing charity work for an NGO, which gives her a sheen of worldliness that impresses the other kids.

As Charlie's affection for Sarah simmers and boils, she begins to ignore her best friend Victoire (Roxane Duran). Charlie and Sarah become inseparable but before long, the friendship enters darker territory. Sarah incurs her friend's ire when she joins Charlie's boyfriend on a plane ride; an act that leaves Charlie callously disregarded. Sarah also becomes thick with Charlie's friends, which begins to rankle her. The romantic stories Sarah tells of her own life begin to annoy the untraveled and innocent Charlie. Particularly vexing are Sarah's stories of sexual conquest, which she uses to humiliate her virginal friend.
As the story progresses, Sarah's unkind and edgier nature emerges.
The friendship takes an even darker turn when Charlie follows Sarah home one night. Suspicious about Sarah's stories about her mother's charity work, Charlie discovers her friend has been concocting wild stories to mask an ugly truth. She finds Sarah lives in a run-down apartment building and peeking through the window, she learns her friend lives with an abusive, alcoholic mother. The scene is exceptional for the slow pan of the the apartment windows, where we see the violent drama inside pass into different rooms until the camera comes to rest on the outside of the building, where the grim revelation plays on Charlie's face. The profound truth about Sarah's life and her need to deceive Charlie and her friends is captured in this one, inventive shot.

When Charlie exposes Sarah's deception, we see the friendship come undone in psychologically-corrosive intricacy. Even after Sarah begins to spread vicious rumors about her friend's sex life; going so far as to scribble scurrilous graffiti on the school walls, Charlie maintains a bizarre loyalty; as if reconciliation is a possibility.
It's easy to see how Charlie's parent's relationship is mirrored in her own. As her mother always sacrifices personal dignity for the sake of having her husband's attention and affection, Charlie is willing to sacrifice her own for the sake of earning Sarah's love.

We can finally see how Nietzsche's words echo truthfully: ending a passion is easier than controlling it.

It isn't surprising how the story ends but it is nonetheless shocking and almost inevitable. Though the story is tremendously sympathetic to Charlie, we see in the end that she is more complicated than she appears and less the passive victim she portrays to the world.

I've always believed the French are masters at psychological character studies. Only a French director could have written and directed a film like Breathe. Comparisons have been made to Blue is the Warmest Color but though that film entered the realm of erotica, Laurent's story only suggests latent sexuality between Charlie and Sarah.

Japy and Laage's performances compliment Laurent's excellent direction. Both women have few difficulties exploring the seemingly endless shadows their characters conceal and expose.

Throughout the film, we see Charlie use an inhaler to combat her virulent asthma. It is interesting to see that her asthmatic episodes seem connected to her relationship with Sarah. The attacks almost seem to be a symptom of the relationship. This idea is strongly supported in the final scene, which I won't reveal here. Charlie's passion for Sarah is so powerful as to literally and figuratively rob her of breath.

Breathe tells us that we should expect great things from Laurent. Her film, like her character who gasps for air, leaves one breathless. If only American teen movies were as fascinating and richly observed as this film. In American teen films, we get weepy characters with cancer or in the case of the insipid Paper Towns; this summer's multiplex teen drama, high school kids are as deep as tortillas. Unfortunately, Laurent's film will play on fewer screens in America than the forthcoming Maze Runner sequel or the final installment of The Hunger Games. Too bad, Laurent's film is more challenging and is certainly more deserving of the attention that is squandered on those glossy wrecks.