Producer Jonathan Cavendish's inspirational biopic about his parents begins in 1957 with love at first sight, as charming Robin Cavendish (Andrew Garfield) sees socialite Diana Blacker (Claire Foy). Despite Diana's family's misgivings, the pair marry and take off for Kenya, where Robin works as a tea-broker. Enjoying an idyllic life, Diana is pregnant when Robin contracts polio and becomes paralyzed from the neck down, only able to breathe through a ventilator. Determined to return to England, Claire relocates Robin to a polio ward, where he is strictly supervised by Dr. Entwhistle (Jonathan Hyde). Miserable in that sterile confinement, Robin wants to go home but that seems impossible until Claire confers with Dr. Khan (Amit Shah) and discovers that Robin's respirator can work anywhere—although if it stops for just two minutes, he will die. Eager to improve his quality of life, devoted Claire has Robin moved to a country home that she has purchased, where he can not only be with his family but also his friends, one of whom is Oxford don/amateur inventor Teddy Hall (Hugh Bonneville), who builds Robin a wheelchair equipped with a portable respirator. In tandem with research foundation director Dr. Clement Aiken (Stephen Mangan)—after soliciting a grant from Lady Neville (Diana Rigg)—Robin and Teddy resolutely work to free other polio sufferers from prison-like hospital confinement, a groundbreaking achievement. Drawing on a glibly superficial, stiff-upper-lip script by William Nicholson, this debut feature from director Andy Serkis (who played Gollum in Lord of the Rings) is more manipulatively sentimental that insightful. Optional. (S. Granger)
Breathe
Universal, 118 min., PG-13, DVD: $22.98, Blu-ray/DVD Combo: $29.98, Jan. 2 Volume 33, Issue 1
Breathe
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