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Sep 14, 2015 By Stephen Danay Web Exclusive

Struggling under the weight of schoolwork, fickle teenage boys and her parents’ imploding marriage, French teen Charlie is just trying to make it through her senior year of high school. A breath of fresh air arrives in the form of Sarah, the charming and mysterious new girl who quickly becomes Charlie’s closest confidant. As their relationship deepens, it begins to transform into something twisted and increasingly unhealthy.

The sophomore directorial effort from Mélanie Laurent—best known to American audiences for her acting turns in Inglourious Basterds and Beginners— Breathe makes it clear that Laurent is just as electrifying behind the camera as she is in front of it. Displaying a remarkable eye for emotional detail and utter confidence in tone, Laurent takes a premise that could be dismissed as ‘French Mean Girls played straight’ and crafts it into a taut, intelligent examination of what it means to be a confused teen girl. Her smooth handheld camera work and tight, jump-cut editing perfectly capture the immediacy and intimacy of teenage interaction while also conveying the way in which time, at that age, seems to be a series of flashes and moments, with relationships and conversations living or dying on a single word or look.

Joséphine Japy and Lou de Laâge are painfully genuine as two very different but equally lost young women, their friendship blooming like a love affair until their symbiosis becomes parasitic. As Sarah, de Laâge walks a tight line between Manic Pixie Dream Friend and femme fatale, alluring and inviting, even as Laurent layers in hint after hint that she is not what she seems. The true tour-de-force is Japy’s Charlie, a sweet, vulnerable naif whose deep-seated self-loathing is the film’s darkest monster. Laurent’s wisest choice is the amount of screen time she devotes to Claire’s face, which Japy transforms into portraits of longing, despair, love and anger, seemingly without ever changing her expression. They’re even able to turn the cliche of Claire’s persistent asthma, which gives the film its title, into a heartbreaking symbol of the film’s sad thesis; it takes real love to truly hate.

Author rating: 8.5/10