Okay, hands up if you don’t know that Neil Armstrong was the first man to walk on the Moon. (Sorry – first person.) If you don’t, it shouldn’t be a surprise. After all, it happened nearly fifty years ago, and a lot has happened since then, so what he did back on 21 July 1969 could so easily be overlooked, or forgotten maybe. And it’s not as if the US has a manned space programme any more. So this is history, recent history to be sure, but something that a lot of people should know about, and even if they can’t remember Armstrong’s name or that he was the first, they should be aware that a handful of very lucky astronauts got to walk on the Moon.
With all that in mind, the latest movie from director Damien Chazelle – Whiplash (2014), La La Land (2016) – looks set to address the issue, putting Armstrong and his “leap for Man” firmly in the public spotlight again. In some ways, it’s surprising that the Apollo 11 mission hasn’t been given the big screen treatment already, but now that it’s here, the trailer – admirably assembled in the way that all trailers for “important” movies should be – begs one question above all others: why does it look and sound like a thriller? We all – sorry, most of us – know the outcome, so why does the trailer make First Man look and feel like there’s some doubt as to whether or not the mission will succeed? And “the most dangerous mission in history”? Hasn’t anyone seen Apollo 13 (1995)?
Still, it does have a great cast, with Ryan Gosling portraying Armstrong as all steely jawed determination, and Claire Foy as his first wife, Janet (equally serious and determined), but the trailer doesn’t give us much more to work with in terms of the real people they’re playing, and how true to life their performances are. The trailer concentrates instead on quotable soundbites – “We have to fail down here so we don’t fail up there” – and pounding music beats to push the tension of the launch. In many respects it’s a trailer designed to make the movie look good (naturally), but it does so by being exactly the kind of trailer you’d expect for this kind of movie: dramatic, forceful, and a little too dry for its own good.
In Steven Soderbergh’s first stab at directing a horror movie, Sawyer Valentini (Foy) is a smart businesswoman making a fresh start for herself in a new town and with a new job. The reason for the fresh start is David Strine (Leonard), the man who stalked her for two years before she managed to get a court to issue a restraining order. But Sawyer begins to see him in various places – not directly, but out of the corner of her eye, or at a distance. Troubled by this and seeking a sympathetic ear, Sawyer attends a facility that purports to help victims of stalkers. But instead of helping her, the staff at the facility mislead her into voluntarily committing herself for twenty-four hours. When she realises this, Sawyer’s agitation leads her to strike an orderly; this results in her stay being extended to seven days. Things go from bad to worse when one of the night orderlies turns out to be Strine, masquerading as “George Shaw”. With the help of a fellow patient, Nate (Pharoah), Sawyer gets word to her mother (Irving), but with the facility legally in the right, she must rely on her wits to see out the seven days, and to stay away from Strine…
While watching Unsane it’s worth remembering that as a director, Steven Soderbergh has an eclectic, and distinctly personal approach to his projects. Touted as his first attempt at horror, the movie is actually a psychological thriller laced with horror elements, but even with that caveat, it’s clear from very early on that Soderbergh isn’t really interested in making a horror movie. Instead, Soderbergh – working from a script by Jonathan Bernstein and James Greer – appears to be more interested in making a feminist statement, one that supports the idea that women, even now, with the MeToo movement and all, still aren’t being listened to. Instead, the movie is saying, women have to be resourceful and work things out for themselves. Now, this isn’t necessarily a bad thing as a theme or a message, but as Sawyer is initially presented as a strong, more than competent businesswoman, the idea that she could be tricked into committing herself into a mental health institution – that she wouldn’t check the small print, as it were – strains credulity from the start.
There is much else that is problematical, from Strine popping up on Day Two (how does he know Sawyer is going to be committed, or that she’ll have her stay extended?), to the intransigence of the facility’s staff, and the uninspired laziness of the local police force (which seems to consist almost entirely of two patrol car officers). At least the script doesn’t belabour the whole is-it-or-isn’t-it-all-in-her-head approach, choosing instead to come down firmly on one side of the fence quite soon after Sawyer’s confinement. This allows the movie to switch from being a woman in peril movie to a woman still in peril but resilient enough to win through in the end movie. Foy is very good indeed as Sawyer, determined and tough even when she’s feeling vulnerable, while Leonard is the epitome of creepiness as Strine, his teddy bear countenance belying his twisted mindset. But while the script is saved in part by the quality of the performances, it’s Soderbergh who saves it the most, his visual approach to the material energising certain scenes and providing an unsettling mise-en-scène in others. There are moments where Sawyer’s sense of isolation is highlighted by having the background stretching away unnaturally behind her, and it’s these kinds of moments that are the most effective. But when all is said and done, this is still just another generic thriller, with too many plot holes, and too many occasions where the phrase, “Oh, come on!” seems entirely appropriate.
Rating: 5/10 – more of an exercise in style and visual representation – Sawyer having a psychotropic break is brilliantly realised – Unsane is a movie that, on the surface, appears to have more depth to it than it actually has; standard fare then, and emboldened in places by Soderbergh’s mercurial direction, but not the edge-of-your-seat thriller that it so obviously wants to be.
Cast: Andrew Garfield, Claire Foy, Tom Hollander, Stephen Mangan, Hugh Bonneville, Jonathan Hyde, Ed Speleers, Steven O’Donnell, Miranda Raison, Harry Marcus, Dean-Charles Chapman, Sylvester Groth, Diana Rigg
In December 1958, while working in Kenya, twenty-eight year old tea broker Robin Cavendish (Garfield) was struck down by polio, leaving him paralysed from the neck down and dependent on a mechanical respirator in order to remain alive. He was brought back to England where at first he was given three months to live, and then a year. His own reaction was to have his respirator turned off. He saw no future for himself and wanted his wife, Diana (Foy), whom he’d recently married and who was still only twenty-five, a chance at a better future for herself. To her credit, and his good fortune, Diana refused to entertain the idea, and told Robin in no uncertain terms that she wasn’t going to give up, even if he wanted to. They also had an infant child, Jonathan, to consider. Still facing a bleak future though, Robin’s only wish was to leave the hospital where he was effectively confined. Against the advice of his doctor (Hyde), he left the hospital, and the Cavendish’s moved into their own home in the countryside, where Diana took on the roles of wife, mother and nurse with the help of friends such as Colin Campbell (Speleers), and her twin brothers Bloggs and David (both Hollander).
In the way that only real life can manufacture, that could, and perhaps should have been the end of Robin’s story, but a truncated lifespan wasn’t on the cards. With the aid of his friend, Oxford professor Teddy Hall (Bonneville), Robin conceived the idea of a wheelchair with a built-in respirator that would allow him to leave the house, and eventually go on trips with the further aid of a converted van. Now more mobile than he could have ever predicted, Robin decided to show the progress he’d achieved to other disabled people, and the medical community. Thanks to private funding, Hall was able to construct a fleet of wheelchairs such as Robin’s, and these enabled other disabled people to leave hospital, and to function in the “outside” world. Robin soon became an advocate and champion for the rights of the disabled, and by the time of his death in 1994, was regarded, quite rightly, as a medical phenomenon, having lived with his deteriorating condition for thirty-six years.
The directorial debut of Andy Serkis – it should have been his version of The Jungle Book, but delays on that production have pushed it back to 2018 – Breathe is exactly what it looks like from the poster and anything you may have heard about it: a tale of inspiration and personal courage. Though Serkis is best known for his motion capture performances as Gollum, King Kong and Caesar, as a director he’s clearly learnt a lot from those he’s worked with over the years because the movie is an assured, likeable production that tells its story in a measured, positive manner that allows the viewer to fully understand Robin’s plight, and the feelings that come with it. Thanks to an equally assured script by William Nicholson, Breathe tackles the various issues related to quadriplegia (though it studiously avoids the issue of sex) with sympathy and no small amount of understanding, most of which is provided by yet another excellent performance by Andrew Garfield. Following on from impressive turns in Silence (2016) and Hacksaw Ridge (2016), Garfield makes sure that every emotion, every feeling, every consideration or decision that Robin makes is clearly expressed so there can be no misunderstanding for the viewer. It’s a performance that also reflects the innate humanity that Robin possessed, and his complete and utter love for Diana, something that could have caused the movie to become cloying and overly sentimental, but which Serkis avoids through a combination of his knowing direction and Garfield and Foy’s awareness of, and immersion in, the characters.
Inevitably, it’s not all triumph over adversity and lives lived happily ever after. This is a movie that starts off on a bright summer’s day at a cricket match where Robin and Diana meet. It couldn’t be more lovely, a replication of happier days when falling in love seemed so easy and uncomplicated. But once he’s struck down by polio and his lifestyle is curtailed, Robin’s life takes on an urgency and a scariness that makes for a number of scenes that are nail-biting even though we know the outcome must favour Robin. At home, their dog catches the lead to the respirator and pulls it out of the electrical socket. We already know that he can’t survive for more than two minutes without it (or someone using a manual respirator), and Serkis plays out those two minutes to the second, creating tension even though we know everything will be fine, but still making the viewer apprehensive and nervous as to how he’ll be saved.
Other moments such as the wheelchair respirator blowing up on a trip to Spain, and the deterioration of the lining of Robin’s lungs, serve as reminders as to the reality of his situation, and they’re used for maximum impact. But if there’s one scene, one image that highlights both Robin’s past predicament, and those of thousands of disabled people across the world at that time, the Sixties, it comes during a visit to a German hospital that is highly regarded for its treatment of the disabled. It’s the movie’s most impressive moment, one of tragedy and despair as we see rows of disabled people like Robin stacked on top of each other in gleaming iron lungs. And when Robin enters the room, the reaction of the head doctor (Groth) is one of horror and embarrassment: horror at the difference between Robin and his patients, and embarrassment at being so badly caught out for treating said patients so appallingly. It’s moments like this one, where the movie challenges the medical and social attitudes of the time that adds depth to the narrative and reminds us all that Robin wasn’t just making these improvements to his life for his own sake, but for the thousands of others just like him.
Breathe is also one of the most beautifully realised movies of the year, with Serkis and cinematographer Robert Richardson combining to provide a richly detailed series of shots and compositions that are often breathtaking in their simplicity, and in their ability to add an emotional layer to scenes that accentuate and support the performances at every turn. The score by Nitin Sawhney is another aspect of the production that Serkis uses to good effect, never allowing the music to overwhelm a scene or prove intrusive, using it instead to provide another sensitive layer to the proceedings. Garfield and Foy have a definite chemistry that makes the enduring love between Robin and Diana entirely credible, and there are terrific supporting turns from Hollander and Mangan (as Robin’s doctor in later life). In covering nearly forty years of one man’s life, the movie is necessarily episodic, and there are occasional lulls in the drama as the story moves from one period to the next, but other than this and some of the supporting characters having little to do except hang about marvelling at Robin’s progress, this is an admirable and accomplished feature debut by Serkis that isn’t afraid to “go dark” when it needs to, and which is inspiring without sounding like it’s preaching.
Rating: 8/10 – a sincere and affecting look at a man’s life and the positive choices that can be made even in the face of extreme adversity, Breathe is a testament to Robin Cavendish’s determination to still lead a fulfilling life, and the equal determination of his wife, Diana, that he should be able to; a moving and immensely entertaining movie, it bodes well for any future turns behind the camera that Serkis embarks on, and is one of the few “lead character with a disability” movies that doesn’t seem like it’s been made just so it can garner nominations and win awards in the year ahead.