Yawn. Poorly Filmed Snooze Fest.

Very very predictable, including the post credit scene !!!

Good concept, poorly executed.

Absolutely Brilliant!

My wife and I watched this movie together, on Netflix streaming. Except for the rampant mumbling which made some of the dialog very difficult to understand we found this to be a very good movie. The subject is a young girl and a middle-aged man falling for each other, a subject which often is treated quite superficially, but this movie treats it in very deep layers.Guy Pearce is Keith Reynolds, doing a job he really hates, teaching music in high school, but he has to make ends meet. He also plays at times with a symphony in NYC and hopes to get on an the 1st chair of the Cello section. He seems reasonably happily married and has a daughter graduating from high school. They mention they are 1 1/2 hours away from NYC on the fast train, so maybe they live on Long Island or in Connecticut, but they never say.The fireworks start right after their foreign exchange student shows up. Felicity Jones is Sophie from England, just turned 18 before she arrived. Sophie is pretty and talented, seemingly virtuoso on the piano, but she also seems unhappy most of the time.The two other main characters are Amy Ryan as the wife and mother, Megan Reynolds and Mackenzie Davis as the daughter just turning 18, champion swimmer, Lauren Reynolds.As the story progresses it becomes clear that Sophie uses people to get what she wants, like having the cute young man take her to Manhattan for a somewhat expensive evening of nightspot hopping, but spurning him completely when he brings her home. Then we see that Sophie and Keith begin to take an unhealthy attraction to each other.The themes here are somewhat complex, they involve a man who isn't satisfied with his position in life, a practical wife who objects to the great expense of moving to NYC, an exchange student who has no appreciation for the problems she may be causing a whole family.Generally the subjects are treated very well, Sophie is selfish, Keith is weak, Megan is trusting. There can be no good resolution to this type of situation. A midlife crisis seldom turns out well.

This is the story of a suburban family that takes in a foreign exchange student from the UK and how their worlds got turned upside-down in that time. The fact is, their worlds were already crashing in around them, but no one was willing to notice anything beyond the board game playing, family picture taking facade they put on. The teenage daughter had already had sex with a guy she had a crush on but wouldn't commit to her because he was too busy blabbing their business to everyone. The father was living a mundane life teaching instead of playing music. The mother seemed oblivious to any of the feelings the other two are having. The exchange student arrives, catches the eye of the daughter's crush, as well as her own father's. As the plot unfolds, I was able to predict all of the major happenings that occurred. The daughter's self- destructive, self- absorbed, alcohol induced over emotion led her to a serious car crash when she ends up losing it. The crush tries to hook up with the exchange student, and when she refuses, he smears her name across the school. And the wife smashes her cookie jar collection when she finally realizes what's going on under her nose between her husband and this 18 year old girl. I found it quite contradicting that the husband finally gets the chair he wanted and the job he has been dreaming of, and is willing to throw it all away the next day by running away with a teenager he had essentially just met. It's hard to see him in a good light when he is willing to do such a thing to his family. I kept desperately hoping that the connection between the leads was more of a father daughter connection, because she had lost her dad and uncle, and his own daughter wasn't into music. My hopes were dashed when they became physical and i found it creepy and unnecessary. they could have gone a totally different way with this and made the film more touching and inspiring. Instead, it bread negativity with no solution. Having said all of that, the scenery was absolutely beautiful, and the score was magnificent. The acting was also superb. Each actor played their character to a T and it was very believable. However, wish I hadn't wasted my time with this one.

"Breathe In" is a film whose plot sounds a bit salacious. And, considering it's a rated R film, I was a bit apprehensive to see the movie. After all, the film is about a man who falls in love with the high school exchange student that he and his wife took into their home. However, the film turned out to be extremely well made and not at all what I expected. And, I have no idea why it's rated R, as the film has no nudity, violence and the language is awfully tame. Overall, it's well worth your time finding this film--and it's available as of this week with Netflix.When the story begins, Keith Reynolds (Guy Pearce) and his wife Megan (Amy Ryan) seem to have a very good life. Their daughter is a pretty high school athlete, they have a lovely home in the suburbs and the marriage seems strong. All of this is shaken shortly after they take in Sophie (Felicity Jones)--an exchange student from Britain. You begin to notice that there are some problems in the Reynolds marriage. Keith is a frustrated musician who dreams of leaving his teaching job to be a full-time musician. However, Megan won't even consider this and insists that he must continue working to keep the family just as it is now. And, she is quite dismissive of his dreams and seems to have little desire to connect with his love of music. Here is where Sophie comes into the picture. She is a great pianist herself and loves Keith's music. She also encourages him with his dream of joining a great orchestra. So, as the film progresses, the pair become closer and closer. And so, when they begin to feel inappropriate feelings towards each other (especially since he is her teacher), it's not especially surprising and, in some ways, it's expected by the viewer. However, and this is important, the film is NOT meant as a romance or endorsement for middle-aged men to have sex with young exchange students. Instead, it's a character study about loneliness within a marriage--loneliness which may push someone to consider making some very stupid choices.So why do I recommend the film? Well, the film is so well made in so many ways. The acting (particularly by Pearce and Jones) is so good because it seems so real. And, the director did a nice job of combining this acting, a nice and provocative script and some really wonderful emotive music into a great little package. I also liked it because it really makes you think and assess where you are in your life. It really struck close to home for me and my own marriage. For me, it was actually very affirming because my own wife went through a mid-life crisis like Keith Reynolds--wanting to give up a very lucrative career as an engineer to become a fiction writer. But, unlike Megan, I thought this was great. Sure, it might mean giving up a lot for the family so that she could follow her dream...but we also knew it would kill her if she didn't--and she is worth the sacrifice. And, in the end, we are all so much better for it--she is quite successful and the change has definitely been for the better for not just her but the entire family.As I mentioned above, this film just came out on Netflix this week and is well worth seeing--particularly with your partner or other loved ones. Don't worry about the R rating--it's also fine for you to see with your teens or mother! I also noticed a reviewer who saw the film as tedious. Well, I sure didn't and it kept my interest throughout.

Keith Reynolds was a rock musician when he was younger but now aspires to be first cellist in a local symphony orchestra in suburban Westchester. That way, he can quit his regular job as a music teacher at the local high school. He's a grim-faced sort of guy who never laughs (nor do any of the other characters in 'Breathe In', a lugubrious melodrama starring Guy Pearce as a wayward musician). He's married to his non-descript wife, Megan and they have a daughter, Lauren, who attends the same high school Keith teaches in.The Reynolds decide to sponsor a British exchange student, Sophie, for a semester, and right off the bat you can guess where the plot is going. Sophie, only 18 years old, is the prescribed home wrecker. The only question that remains is what kind of home wrecker is she? Perhaps a demon seed who ends up murdering a principal or two in the household? Not quite. We finally find out that Sophie is a near genius pianist who demonstrates her extreme competence, when Keith insists that she introduce herself by playing a classical piece before his high school class.After that it's a long drag as Keith and Sophie grow closer to each other. Eventually, they find themselves cuddling by a lake in a local park and there's finally one rather chaste kiss. Much to daughter Lauren's chagrin, she spies her errant father canoodling with the sultry exchange student. Since Lauren was also rejected by her first time sex flame, the combination of the two bad actors (daddy and ex-boyfriend) is too much for her to handle. She gets behind the wheel of her car after swigging some alcohol, and gets into a possibly fatal accident as she veers off the road into the woods, to avoid an oncoming truck.Of course this dark moment at the end of Act 2, occurs precisely around the same time Keith lands the job as principal cellist in the orchestra and is playing for the first time in the big seat. He's also decided to run off with the young Sophie but just as he meets her, he learns of Lauren's accident.After Megan trashes the house after realizing that Keith has run off, she meets him at the hospital, where she gives him a decidedly negative reception. Fortunately, director Drake Doremus doesn't go as far as to kill off the daughter, and make this a real heavy-handed tragedy. Instead, poor Sophie gets a double dose of bad stares from both Keith and Megan when they return home and her days in America have decisively come to an end.David Lee Dallas of Slant Magazine perhaps puts it best in his review: "Breathe In masquerades as a sensitive character study, seemingly high-brow because it's so low-key, but underneath that veneer is an inert, thinly plotted melodrama premised on trite characterizations that would be offensive if they weren't so absurd."Part of Breath In's problem is that most of the dialogue feels like it's improvised. Indeed, director Doremus worked from a 60 page outline and not a full-blown script. After numerous takes, Doremus has been quoted as saying that the actors simply "knew what to say." Some may find that inventive, but I do not.As Breathe In plods along, one finds oneself mildly interested in how the story resolves itself. But once all is said and done, this earnest little tale of infidelity proves to be ordinary as they come.