Breathe

A truly remarkable story, well scripted and performed, is based on the life of Robin and Diana Cavendish and produced by their son, Jonathan. Claire Foy and Andrew Garfield lead a great supporting cast. Great themes about life, death, love, faithfulness, the courage it takes to live and the tenacity of love that pushes the boundaries of courage and creativity. I heartily recommend it to you. I give this film an 8 (great) out of 10. {Drama}

English isn't my native language, so forgive me in advance:)

I loved this movie. I was impressed by the acting skills of Andrew Garfield, totally believable. Claire Foy did a great job too, I think she's a very good actress, I have to admit that at times I found it difficult to not see Queen Elisabeth in her.

The story line was a bit rushed though, their relationship didn't really develop on the screen and for me it was hard to believe she really loved him in the very beginning of the film. But towards the end it was totally believable. One thing I missed was a great score, the music was almost absent, they should have asked Rachel Portman for the soundtrack (Never Let Me Go). But hey, that's just my opinion.

I shed some tears at the end.. It's a story about true love! Go watch it, you won't regret it!

This is a beautifully filmed movie. It's inspiring to watch the devotion of the wife in supporting her husband struck down with polio at age 28. His subsequent efforts to live outside the hospital and advances in a wheelchair with a ventilator attached are quite illuminating. Especially with what happened to Christopher Reeve it is still relevant today. This movie doesn't focus too much on the awful side which is good or it would be too depressing.

The leads are watchable. Claire Foy QE2 of the Crown speaks and acts a lot like she does as Queen Elizabeth. Andrew Garfield isn't one to shy away from difficult roles. Here he speaks with his British accent.

It's a good thing to be reminded about Polio amidst the recent debate whether or no to vaccinate.

Breathing is the most natural thing on earth, right? But when British tea broker Robin Cavendish contracted polio in Kenya in 1958, he found that he was paralysed from the neck down and could not breathe without the constant support of a mechanical ventilator. This true story is told with Andrew Garfield as Robin and Claire Foy as his wife Diana, both of whom give fine performances of nuanced emotion.

Inevitably the film will be compared with "The Theory Of Everything" but it is no bad thing to be reminded that people with disabilities can achieve remarkable things. In Stephen Hawking's case, he was still able to make great contributions to theoretical physics; in the instance of Robin Cavendish, he transformed the treatment of those with paralysis, both in the UK and much wider.

For first time director Andy Serkis, this is clearly a very personal project. His professional partner and producer on the film is Jonathan Cavendish, the son of Robin and Diana, while Serkis's sister has multiple sclerosis. Serkis is known for his acclaimed acting in performance-capture roles, but the only major use of special effects here is to enable Tom Hollander to represent both of Diana's identical twin brothers.

At the end especially, the heart strings are well and truly plucked, but it is gratifying to see such a well-made and life-affirming work on our screens.

The winner of the 2017 Heavy-Duty Tissues Award can now be announced. The beautifully produced British film Breathe (2017) is an inspirational bio-pic based on the short life of Robin Cavendish who was the longest survivor of polio in the pre-vaccination era. That description does little to prepare viewers for what is a multi-layered period drama, with themes about assisted dying, disability rights, medical innovation, personal triumph over adversity, and the all-conquering power of a woman's love. Amongst all of this are several good cries.

Set in the 1950s, Robin Cavendish (Andrew Garfield), a dashing young tea-broker, met the love of his life Diana (Claire Foy) at a cricket game. Before long, they are courting, married, and set for an idyllic yet modest life together until Robin is struck down by the paralysis of polio. At the time, the only prognosis was a short life tied to a hospital respirator. For the active Robin death was preferable to being tethered to an artificial lung, but Diana would have none of it. Close friend and inventor Teddy Hall (Hugh Bonneville) pioneered a wheel-chair with a battery powered respirator that freed Robin from a life inside hospital, despite advice that he would not survive outside for more than two weeks. The story traces their adventurous lives together, including a trip to Africa and a disability conference in Germany. Perhaps the film's most disturbing image is a German hospital where polio victims are laid out in morgue-like boxes, kept alive only by mechanical respirators.

It is impossible to imagine this film being bearable without Andrew Garfield's extraordinary performance, supported by Claire Foy in the equally demanding role of his wife. Garfield possesses one of cinema's most expressive faces which he deploys to full effect as the mostly prostrated polio patient who can only speak a short sentence at a time between breaths. From the depths of wanting to die to the joyful heights of feeling his baby son's skin against his face, Garfield communicates in a facial sign language that says more than the words of fine orators. Some viewers will fairly believe that Claire Foy is the film's real star. Where Garfield is an emotional roller coaster, Foy is a powerhouse of defiant strength who refuses to surrender to polio or to her husband's wish to die. If the film can be faulted, it may be in its polite sanitisation of what it means to depend on others for every bodily function.

This story is more about unconditional love than heroism. Robin was surrounded by caring and talented friends, including the inventor of the respirator wheelchair that gave him freedom. Most importantly, he had a wife whose stubborn loyalty forced him to push on where others may have given up. Robin became a high-profile disability spokesman because fate gave him the opportunity to advocate for others. This warm-hearted story illuminates a little-known episode of history that has been consigned to the archives of medical science. Take extra tissues, but you will leave feeling inspired.