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When was the last time you held your breath for 30 seconds? 60 seconds....ever? Try holding it for 3+ minutes. The focus of this film is about deep-water free diving records. 172+ meters under water. It takes a team to assist as it is highly dangerous. While record-breaking divers are the main theme, the film follows a free spirit college dropout lady who stumbles into a relationship with a top diver who is a blatant narcissist. The lady actually starts to attempt some of her own dives. The story blends their rocky relationship with the smooth and calm diving attempts. Will there be more broken diving records or now broken hearts? This was an interesting small feeling film with some solid underwater shots and in-depth character development. It is actually based on a true story! Yikes!

Surprised to see this rating on IMDB but for me this movie is 10/10.

Totally breathtaking from the first minute - maybe because for me water is a great mystery and every time they dive in I was stressed out, waiting to see what will happen.

A lot to learn from the story of the main character - Roxana and all the way she goes towards achieving her dream - to find her purpose.

Entangled within the hard live she had, the hard live her love had and the mistakes they want to "fix", there is a love story so complicated that you want to see it ending in a different way.

And I did not expect the ending of the movie which quite made me think of the whole story for days.

Water is undoubtedly Pascal's element. His great passion is freediving, in which he has also set the record. He runs diving courses and one day meets Roxana, who also wants to dive into the depths of the water.

At first it seems as if Roxana could get together with her diving instructor Tom (César Domboy), but it soon becomes clear that she is falling under Pascal's spell. He may be taken, but that doesn't stop the two of them from plunging into a stormy relationship. The warning signs are unmistakable - Pascal's charisma hides a toxic side that draws Roxana into a dangerous dependency.

The film broadly explores the risks and fascination of freediving, also known as apnea diving, which involves making the most of the breath before descending. This can be both fascinating and frightening, as shown by the example of Frenchwoman Audrey Mestre, who held several world records. "Sous emprise" combines the highs and lows of the sport with an intense toxic love story.

"Sous emprise - Freedom under water" shows the negative effects this toxic relationship has on Roxana in particular. It is not entirely clear why she does not fight back against these influences sooner. Overall, the film dispenses with necessary explanations. Although it is hinted early on that the protagonist is struggling with her life, there are no concrete details. Despite its weaknesses in character development and narrative style, the film is a haunting portrait of dangerous love and the search for self-discovery in the depths of the water.

The breathtaking underwater imagery and dives are particularly convincing and lend the film a visual splendor that reinforces the feeling of freedom and escape. The acting performances are solid. Furthermore, the movie is quite realistic and inspired by a true story. At the end of the movie, one wonders what actually happened and what was just fiction.

--------------- Conclusion:

Quite good - "Sous emprise - Freedom Underwater" follows a couple who share a passion for free diving. The underwater shots are visually appealing and offer exciting moments, especially when the athletes compete against each other. However, the stereotypical toxic relationship takes center stage and is merely cloaked by the sporting background.

This fiction movie I found out after watching it is actually based on the life of Audrey Mestre (1974 - 2002) a French world record-setting freediver and her husband. Since it is actually a fiction movie, it is obvious that someone took liberties and embellished this story - they either had insider information on her personal details or made up a bunch of baloney for a story as it doesn't really match the Wikipedia biography on her. This disturbs me a bit because although 20 years have passed, I have no idea what the laws are in France but I assume that someone got paid or gave permission to do this Netflix story - and I truly hope it wasn't her husband exploiting her memory for money. He was actually portrayed as her boyfriend in this movie who was a diver himself and taught her how to dive. The movie itself was kind of interesting and gave me a greater understanding of the sport itself. I have no idea why someone would want to do it although I have seen lots of Greek divers in FL get started by diving for sponges, The acting was a little bad but the likeness of the FL was very similar to the real person.

Quite nice cinematically, typically French and good if you're in a deep and thoughtful mood, but with some quite depressing themes so not one to cheer anyone up! This is exactly the sort of 'world' film that I like to watch by myself because no one else woukd watch it with me - it was dubbed but I might have actually preferred original French with subtitles as it keeps the arty quality.

There were a lot of things I found frustrating and nonsensical about the storyline until I wondered whether it was based on a real person, and then it started to make sense because real life is full of awful choices and watching flawed people make decisions that are hard to fathom.

Honestly so much of the story had me thinking 'that would never happen' that you pretty much couldn't make it up.

The main characters are often a bit unlikeable in my opinion and the ones that are decent seem to get the rough end of the deal... Unfortunately true to life you might think.

I do like the sea though, and it was interesting to learn about the sport and the psychology around it. I quite liked it but again, you'd need to be in the mood for something pretty slow but dramatic!