To begin with, the actual act of producing their work is hard enough people with finances keen on gaining certainty over revenue, artistic differences and compromises being made on a minute to minute basis, and the relationships and opinions of those involved who need to unite towards one ultimate goal not being united completely for that all important ‘one vision’.
However, all that mentioned does not mean that the majority of movie viewers do not have a particular way of thinking. It nourishes their desires, their wishes, their hopes and their method of dealing with disagreements. And especially applicable to the fans of any genre. Some would call it as ‘being over critical’, others would call it ‘pure logic and sanity’. However, one thing is clear, God help any filmmaker who ignores this fact, who fails to comprehend what these film enthusiasts are like and most tragically who creates his or her masterpiece in such a manner that does not bother about this issue. Now don’t get me wrong. I’m not implying for example that an artist makes an artwork just to please its audience (although I’m sure most of the troll heads would disagree), however what I am implying is that there is way to incorporate this within your artwork and create something that does not automatically incite these jeers and as a result reduce the chances of arousing the anger of the online community of these movie is something hungry people angry about something never ever even comes across their thoughts.
Breathe, their last work, is presented as a gripping thriller that includes plenty of capable faces as characters and actors in the film, including real life winners of the Oscars, utilising the appealing premise of the film, ‘imagine a house invasion in an overwhelmingly advanced futuristic setting’, the creators seem full of potential.
That was possibel whatever the diresction of the film went some ten years later, the earth has no oxygen anymore and is a barren wasteland forever. A family from Brooklyn Darius (Common), Maya (Hudson Jennifer) and Zora (Quvenzhane Wallis) live inside a sealed off bunker, orchestrating their time scavenging for useful items and like any other family. But tragedy strikes soon after and while they try to cope with it, they are suddenly presented by two guests at their door Milla Jovovich and Sam Worthington who claim to be acquaintances of Darious and seek emergency assistance to make a new home for themselves. And so, the thrill bar game starts, claiming the lives of the clueless insiders. But for the outsiders, the many schemers, the scenario turns a pleasant angle in the future and everyone wants to be inside.
And those bones are given decent meat the cast is quite decent, even those who can practically do a genre with their eyes closed (Jovovich) or those who can actually act (Wallis, Hudson); the budget, though low, is well allocated and does not try to put in more than it can convincingly deliver; and Bristol proves to be effective in shooting everything in one small room yet feeling extremely cinematic need as to why earth has no oxygen. Yes, you heard it right! There is nothing in the way an explanation is given, no makes, not even a slight hint of a catastrophe which the entire planet suffered. Now that in itself isn’t too much of a problem but when the script then keeps dropping little hints about this that constantly has the audience going “wait what?” then it soon becomes one. Earth is a desolate, sand filled wasteland with rotting cement and no seas, but we see how it all occurred in less than 15 years and shows us baby Zara, which indicates that all this destruction has taken place in less than 20 years so how does the absence of air cause this. How can it be that we were given this air seems to be coming back medic similar to the script was thrown up with loss of recklessness.
Every single piece of communication highlights how stupid the story makes every moment when it shouldn’t. For example, one character decides not to kill another, simply because he or she is presupposed to come up with a solution. Why write it this way at all, is this some kind of twist, that we all waited to see and when I turn to the audience it is actually more reasonable to suppose that this character was not even aware that there was a problem in the first place. With problems in the same city and across the narrative everlasting episodes cut out at the right time and catching a shot where there should not be much of a shot to catch at all.
As though there were some particularly effective set pieces that could create or generate energy and excitement or even mask some of the script’s weaknesses. The ever present countdown of that so called limited oxygen supply is reduced to nothing more than cliched story beats. No drama, no intensity, and nothing to get the heart rate out of ‘bored sleep’ levels. The setting in an enclosed bunker is not considered at any point to be a resource for blood boiling excitement or heart stopping thrills. Absent these cliched scenes, let’s be generous and say it was ‘realistic.’ However in this genre of films it simply looks and feels flat, it looks and feels so bloody boring.
And as the narrative problems multiply, so do the character ones Common’s survivalist engineer gets no more background to explain how he managed to build a bunker to go undetected in the middle of a house row creating what should be the most sophisticated air filtration system ever constructed. He must have anticipated that when the world ended, it would be in the form of insufficient oxygen rather than any other form of global annihilation and has done so for no one else; Wallis’ gifted kid is so exceptionally bright that he can operate this incredibly complex air filtration system but has yet to learn how to read NUMBERS; and nobody needs to see Sam Worthington as the ‘psycho’ who also happens to be interesting in anyway. Including Sam Worthington. The characters do not even come close to having any flesh on them that would better help understand the circumstances in which the character responds to a given situation; it is as if the shattered tale is driving them, rather than than the narrative driving the shattered character.
What is really annoying is the fact that all these issues come up because it is self inflicted trouble. Take out Common’s character and most of these issues disappear. Start from the character and the narrative beats that irritate are not needed something like this has to start with the actual people to draw everything else, because there really is not much of anything else: some people are in a house other people want to get inside it. That’s the whole story. Build out the characters in order to know their real motivations, the intricacy of the situation which is never as black and white as it sounds at first do not depend on the plot beats to bridge these gaps because that is when the common sensical annoying, and infuriated teeth grinding begins.
Is all that nitpicking or is it however how most of us behave when watching films. There is an element of sense which is needed for one to be able to buy a premise. Regardless of how outlandish that premise may be. And it is when that sense is mauled, charred, flamethrowed, and nuked sky high all in this that the audience begins to get their hackles raised. And it should really be so simple.
It is bare. If you have watched any good movies with home invasion such as Wait Until Dark, The Strangers, Don’t Breathe, funny Games, or even Panic Room or the new one I.S.S., you will see that all of them start with character. And not with artificial practices and loose ends in the storyline. Instead, just go and watch any one of these rather than this.
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