Breathing Happy

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.

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!

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.

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 was in a short film that was programmed with 'Breathing Happy' at Chattanooga Film Festival, Filmquest, and Lausanne Underground Film & Music Festival and I finally had a chance to watch this on Hoopla.

This is a deeply personal film that touches on the generational curse of alcoholism and how hard that is to break and the destruction left behind.

There is a tremendous amount of skill going on here and I loved the manic cinematography/lighting/editing as the now sober lead character no longer has anything to numb his possible ADHD/schizophrenic tendencies.

This is everything I love about indie film!