The arrival of a foreign exchange student threatens to come between a married couple in BREATHE IN
BREATHE IN (Drake Doremus, 2013)
Opens Friday, March 28
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In his 2011 Sundance award-winning Like Crazy, Drake Doremus intimately explored the intense relationship between a British exchange student (Felicity Jones) and an American classmate (Anton Yelchin) who meet at an L.A. college. Director Doremus, cowriter Ben York Jones, and Felicity Jones have teamed up again for another poignant love story, Breathe In. This time Jones (The Invisible Woman) stars as high school senior and pianist Sophie Williams, who comes to upstate New York as part of a semester abroad program. She is staying with the Reynolds family — Keith (Guy Pearce), a music teacher and part-time cellist who dreams of getting a chair at the symphony; his devoted wife, Megan (Amy Ryan), who collects cookie jars; and their daughter, high school senior Lauren (Mackenzie Davis). It doesn’t take long before a serious attraction develops between Keith and Sophie, one that builds slowly and organically while threatening to upend what had apparently been a stable, happy family. Doremus handles his purposely clichéd setup with a tender intelligence that prevents Breathe In from turning into what could have been yet another film about a frustrated older man risking everything to get in bed with a much younger woman. Doremus builds believable situations in the sensitively drawn story, in which the actors often improvise as their characters search for their place in life. Jones is alluring as the complex Sophie, Davis is impressive in her film debut, and Ryan makes the most of a relatively one-note part, but the film belongs to Pearce (The Hurt Locker, L.A. Confidential, Prometheus), an underrated actor who reinvents himself once again, playing Keith with a brittle hesitancy and understated vulnerability that intimately evoke the inner struggles and temptations we all experience. Breathe In is a poignant family drama that feels like a slice of real life.