Breathing Happy

I saw this at FilmQuest 2022 it was hands down my personal favorite film of the fest. It's heartbreaking, but heartwarming, it's weird, but so simple, it's a little scary, but also so so funny. Great cinema doesn't need a huge budget and a huge cast -- just a great script, great acting and some filmmaking magic. Highly recommend this one!

The film deals with addiction and family and how those two intersect and bump into each other so often, and yes those topics and intersections can sometimes be triggering, but this film has a lot of honesty wrapped in some absurd and hilarious mind-warps and you are gonna love the film, and never look at the doors in your house the same way again!

Many of the other reviews seem to focus on the plot of the movie, this review will mostly avoid that. To quickly sum the movie up it's about a guys struggle to stay sober for a year. All of that is well and good but they way the writers portray his saga could give you a headache. Most of the movie is spent jumping around time periods. At one moment it's the present and the next the past to the point that movie feels like it's battling HDHD. In addition the movie employs heavy use of metaphors to illustrate the main characters struggles. However it comes across as a poor attempt at trying to convey the depth of thought someone like Carl Jung or J krishnamerti might. A major drawback is the main actors representation of a person battling with sobriety, it's flat out not believable.

I wasn't massively convinced I'd enjoy this film going into the showing. My suspicion was that it would be yet another examination of addiction, another 'messy' life, another selfish protagonist who was horrible to all other humans but for whom I was supposed to feel something other than annoyance (lots of those stories around at the minute, some fantastic, some properly terrible).

But shame on me for doubting, because it was excellent. And the fact that this sort of story is so hard to tell makes it even more laudable. The script strayed into brilliantly off-beat and strange territory where others would have become maudlin. A brilliant performance from Brady - in a role that in other hands could result in a very unlikeable character - kept me invested. There are weirdly funny moments followed by bits where I wanted to cry my eyes out. Beautiful cinematography from Zissimopulos never lets up, keeping us on a relentless, moving, skewed ride through the past and present of the characters. Totally surreal and yet believable.

The thing that sealed it for me was reaction from the audience in the cinema, which will stay with me for a long time. Most looked like they'd just been punched in the gut - in the best way.

I've read that this is a movie whose main demographic should be addicts and recovering addicts... and while this film may offer unique insight for those groups, I am in neither, and thought this was brilliant and groundbreaking. It is a mindbending look inside the brain and life of a recovering addict as he nears a sobriety milestone, and it is filled with humanity, regret, familial crises, and sadness... yet at the same time shows a world of hope, a sense of humor, and a dogged determination to beat addiction.

Wildly creative, frenetically paced, and vibrantly shot, it is filled with sharp dialogue, hallucinations, magic, and trauma, and probably paints a realistic picture of the struggle for sobriety in the face of immense personal tragedy. I thought it was terrific. Huge props to Shane Brady for writing, directing, editing, and starring in this unique and fascinating film.

Full disclosure, I am the Director of Photography for this film. My company also graded it, conformed it (with all its crazy formats), did some VFX, and finished it. As filmmakers, we sometimes spend tremendous amounts of time on indie projects like this, ending with much left to be desired. However, that wasn't the case with Breathing Happy. So, I wanted to shed some light on why I find this one of the most exceptional films I've been privileged enough to be a part of.

While the script seemed very ambitious for the amount of time we had to shoot as is pretty much always the case (just 15 days), it became apparent to me on day 1 that Shane would turn this into something marvelous. We shot the scene with the veterinarian, who happens to be Shane's brother, a non-actor. The performance Shane was able to drive out of him and the dog no less, while giving it all himself, solidified that I was working with a gifted filmmaker with all sorts of tricks up his sleeve.

The second week of filming saw the likes of young actors Owen Atlas, Evee White, and Mia Castillo as well as older versions of siblings and family members Brittaney Escalante, Augie Duke, Katelyn Nacon, June Carryl, and John D'Aquino. Their performances were all an inspiration to my work and I would walk away from the set each day knowing that this film was going to be special. Everyone rose above "A game", including the crew who are all my close friends, in an effort to craft a piece of magic that only forms when you truly love what you are doing and the people you are creating with.

With all of those perfect cards, Shane took the traditional, weighty, moody, and often stuffy addiction drama and transformed it, through some of the best indie film editing I've ever seen, into an fascinating tale of temptation, loss, loneliness and the hope for redemption. Hitting you from all angles, bringing you the highest of highs, the lowest of lows, and even switching the narrative format on its side from time to time. Breathing Happy is a true testament to Shane's mastery of sleight-of-hand in that it is both a harrowing and charming story that excels in making you feel a gamut of emotions, very deeply, through every fibre of your being.