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BREATH: Simon Baker’s Puberty Blues

BREATH: Simon Baker’s Puberty Blues

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BREATH: Simon Baker's Puberty Blues

Breath, Australian actor Simon Baker’s directorial debut, begins much like a traditional visual essay. Its opening underwater shot, (similar to the opening shots of previous 2018 entries Tully, Mary Magdalene and The Shape of Water), is paired with a reflective voiceover (provided by the source novel’s author, Tim Winton) telling us what the thesis of the film is going to be – Pikelet, our young protagonist, learned to conquer fear this summer, through the experience we’re about to see unfold on-screen.

It’s a perfect opening in terms of setting up the movie’s irritating clash between the subtlety of its storytelling and the overt nature of its thematic substance, a central dynamic that leads to an end product that’s slight in content but accomplished in technical form.

When We Were Young

Based on the 2008 book by celebrated Australian author Tim Winton, Breath’s story outline sounds instantly tacky – a coming of age tale about the defining childhood friendship between Pikelet (Samson Coulter) and his troubled companion Loonie (Ben Spence), set against the backdrop of a fictional country town in 1970’s Australia. Winton’s leisurely, likable and laconic work yearns for a time when kids would fill their times with outdoor activities, navigating their ways around remote suburbs with their bikes, a jubilant period of Australian history that was already covered in the failed comedy Swinging Safari earlier this year.

Where Safari felt content to merely parade a series of nostalgic reminders of the past to appeal to Australia’s senior cinema-going audience, Breath is luckily much more muted when it comes to its period setting, with enough thought put into the costuming and production design to give understated credibility to this journey into the past.

BREATH: Simon Baker's Puberty Blues
source: Roadshow Films

The two best friends fill their free time with a variety of dangerous activities, small acts of defiance that feel rebellious against their town’s placid atmosphere, whether it be playing chicken with trucks on the highway, skitching utes or even their foul-mouthed exchanges about their genitalia.

Now, it wouldn’t be an Australian drama without a bit of domestic abuse, which comes in the form of Loonie’s unseen father, an alcoholic whose only visual presence within the film is through Loonie’s introductory black eye, and later on, an undefined broken arm.  Pikelet’s household situation might be a bit better than his damaged best friend, but he also clearly shares a distant relationship with his own father, a quiet man constantly fixed in a state of sombre benevolence, delivered through a reserved performance by Richard Roxburgh.

Father Figures

These fringe demonstrations of disobedience eventually culminate in both of the boy s instant interest in the sport of surfing, after spotting an unseen figure gracefully navigating the dangerous seas upon his surfboard. After making their own make-shift boards, the keen amateur surfers catch the eye of Sando (Simon Baker), a world championship winning surfer who clearly sees the potential in these two misfits. Hitting the waves everyday is Sando’s raison d’etre, a deep passion which isn’t quite translated cinematically with the same level of palpable intensity that obviously fuels the sympathetic mentor. It’s this level of internal determination and carefree ideals that positions the grizzled athlete as the boys new father figure, an upgrade over their own unsatisfactory parents.

Baker plays this complicated character well, even if he may lack the physical intimidation that would define him as a real alpha figure to his budding proteges. It helps that Simon Baker himself is a naturally likable screen presence, as it helps sell the reverential nature of the wisdom-spouting teacher. He borders on feeling like an Aussie Tyler Durden, an imaginary guru who merely exists to relentlessly guide these kids through a difficult period of their adolescence.

Through his guidance, Pikelet and Loonie’s dialogue exchanges about comparing dick sizes are replaced with heated debates measuring wave heights, one of the more subtle character moments that the script, co-written by Baker, Winton and Gerard Lee, provides at times.

Forgotten Females

As this trio starts to constantly hit the beaches in search for new waves and challenges, we meet Eva (Elizabeth Debicki), Sando’s withheld wife, an ex-Olympian American skier whose career was terminated due to a debilitating knee injury. Much like the rest of the few female characters, Eva mostly resides in the background, with her motivations and personal agency relegated to 3rd hand accounts by Sando, merely hinting at a more interesting character than we are presented with.

The only other significant female in the movie is Karen (Megan Smart), a classmate of Pikelet’s who quickly becomes his girlfriend, a mishandled subplot that constantly feels superfluous whenever its briefly brought up. These fleeting windows into Pikelet’s school life also introduce one of Breath’s obvious illustrations of its narrative intentions, as Baker constantly keeps showing purposeful shots of the books Hearts of Darkness and Moby Dick. This is backed up when Pikelet idly watches the 1956 Moby Dick adaptation on television, trying to tie the classic book’s theme of defiance against authority with the trio’s reasons for their surfing escapades. Its a noble idea, but one which isn’t given enough material to really develop into anything poignant.

BREATH: Simon Baker's Puberty Blues
source: Roadshow Films

The unfolding drama concludes with an incredibly perplexing shift in priorities, as Baker and Loonie leave the film for a hefty chunk of the third act, leaving the 15-year-old Pikelet to engage in a misguided affair with the lonely Eva. Her sexual kink, which involves the act of being choked with a plastic bag, attempts to mirror Sando’s gentle handling of Pikelet’s growing anxiety with Eva’s aggressively confrontational approach, forcing him to come to terms about his feelings by juxtapositioning two activities featuring oxygen deprivation (its quite the stretch).

Those who frowned upon the age disparity between the two leads of Luca Guadagnino’s Call Me By Your Name might find similar issues here, as the film treats the 15-year-old’s love affair as somewhat aspirational, with a comically-edited montage set to Fleetwood Mac’s The Chain (which feels mildly exhausted after Guardians of the Galaxy 2’s excellent usage of it just a year ago) showcasing the feverish sexual liaisons between the two detached individuals.

Whilst it could be argued that people would be much more vocal of the erroneous relationship if the genders were reversed, it’s a misplaced story beat because it introduces unnecessary melodrama into what was a pretty uncomplicated account of one kid’s mental and physical maturation, with this new development bringing in an abundance of potential explosive consequences that the apathetic drama is clearly trying to avoid. Once again the storytelling slightness becomes an issue, as this absence of any real payoff results in an end product that lacks any final impact.

Behind The Camera

As a director, Baker seems more conscious of achieving impressive visuals rather than developing his narrative, as he’s clearly in love with the emancipating nature of surfing, especially when surfers are unironically referred to as “above the ordinary” by the ominous voiceover. The cinematography, which is primarily handled by Marden Dean (Rick Rifici shot the water sequences) shows a level of visual confidence, an extension of Baker’s firm and assured direction for his first-time conducting a feature film.

BREATH: Simon Baker's Puberty Blues
source: Roadshow Films

Even if you ignored the unfolding plot, the nice scenic shots of rural Western Australia would make for a great travelogue, an enticing tour of what the massive state has to offer. Unfortunately, the subdued colour palette, matched with the minimalistic violin-heavy soundtrack, shares the same drab feeling of many modern Australian dramas, which makes it feel homogenous amongst the slate of dreary, kitchen-sink pictures that have emerged from this country every year since the Ozploitation era finished.

Breath: Conclusion

Simon Baker’s debut directorial feature Breath can best be summed up in this quote: “Familiarity may not breed contempt, but it certainly does nothing to heighten the dramatic impact of a film”.

Despite Baker’s adept directional skills, and solid performances from the whole cast, the slight storytelling often feels inconsequential, and the sombre visual and thematic tone feels like every Australian social realist drama that we’ve seen a million times before. It gave me a sense of deja vu – maybe not in the way Tim Winton and Simon Baker had actually intended.

What are some of your favourite films about surfing? Tell us your thoughts in the comments below!

Breath will be released in the United States on June 1, 2018. For all international release dates, see here.

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