Day 150: Breathe In (August, 6)

Breathe In lives up to its name. With quiet yet a strong pace, it breathes the many layers of human relations inside a family. According to the synopsis about the movie, the arriving of a new person changes a family's dynamics forever. 

I disagree with that. The changes were already there for the three members of this apparently happy and peaceful core, along many years of life together. What the new person does is make evident all the crackings in this familiar structure. People have this fierce skill to point what we usually don't want to see. And even if what is broken is visible after that, we probably will choose to still live with it, for it's a comfortable way of carrying on with ourselves. 

Guy Pearce's Keith is a figure to something that I've been witnessing in many people I know: Once, there was a lot of ideals and dreams to what life should be. Things changed, new ways of living were presented, but it is difficult to change all the dreams that we once hoped for. I'm far from saying that we should stop dreaming and wishing, no way I would say anything like that. What I've been thinking these days - and this movie helped get along with that - is that as things change, dreams are transformed too. We can get too attached to a former desire, as it could be the salvation against a conforming life, but maybe this dream is not  fit to us anymore. Others are waiting to be conquered, but our idealized stubbornness doesn't open a space for them. 

Felicity Jones is intense here, a fragile and strong young lady that is so much older than her age (her awareness about things is very mature), but at the same time she is in fact just 18. The poetic and beautiful pace of this movie tells us so much about that and other things, in a delicate and respectful manner, so far from the usual stereotypes in this topic. It is joy to see, even in a melancholy setting. A surprisingly good movie in the morning...

Breathe In. Directed by Drake Doremus. With: Guy Pearce, Felicity Jones,
Mckenzie Davis. Writers: Drake Doremus, Ben York Jones. USA, 2013,
98 min., Dolby Digital, Color (Cable TV).