Reviews
‘Last Breath’ Review – Based on a True Story Survival Thriller Won’t Leave You Breathless
The opening of Last Breath, a grim scene of a deep sea saturation diver spasming from oxygen deprivation at the bottom of the ocean, signals a nail-biting survival thriller ahead. That Last Breath is also based on the 2019 documentary of the same name, which in turn details the 2012 account of a major saturation diving accident in the North Sea, further suggests a gripping watch centered around a frantic rescue facing impossible odds. As the film then rewinds to establish the events that lead up to this harrowing scene, however, what should’ve been an intense, breathless scenario instead becomes flattened by its broad, detached documentarian approach to illuminating a rarely observed yet highly dangerous job.
Tenured divers Duncan Allcock (Woody Harrelson) and David Yuasa (Simu Liu) are teamed with relative newcomer Chris Lemons (Finn Cole) on a routine assignment to maintain a pipeline at the bottom of the ocean nearly 100 meters deep. Routine, in this instance, requires a lot of careful planning and preparation for all, including the ship captained by Jenson (Cliff Curtis) and 1st Officer Hanna (MyAnna Buring), who lowers the divers to extreme depths via diving bell. A freak power outage aboard the ship during high winds disrupts their standard procedure and leads to catastrophe, requiring all hands on deck to race against the clock and recover Chris when his umbilical cord is snapped, and he’s stranded below.
(l-r.) Finn Cole stars as Chris Lemons, Woody Harrelson as Duncan Allcock and Simu Liu as Dave Yuasa LAST BREATH, a Focus Features release.
Credit: Mark Cassar / © 2024 FOCUS FEATURES LLC
Director Alex Parkinson, who wrote and co-directed the 2019 doc, approaches his fictionalized vision with the same documentarian eye. Last Breath, despite drawing from a true account, gives a bird’s eye view rather than a personal entry point into an extreme survival tale. Screenwriters Mitchell LaFortune, Parkinson, and David Brooks give precedence to establishing the jargon and processes for the job itself, putting their characters on the periphery.
Liu’s David is stone-cold serious about the job, for good reason, but is employed solely as the muscle in rescue operations. Harrelson is sidelined for most of the film as the relaxed and playful diver so tenured that he’s facing a forced retirement, but this is a subplot that never amounts to anything nor contributes to the inert emotional center. As the diver trapped below, Cole’s Chris fares strongest with character development, with a worried fiancée at home to provide motivation, but there’s far too much intricate groundwork to cover with attempts to save his life to connect with any of the characters introduced, despite them being based on actual people. It’s as though Last Breath is reticent to deter too much from history and instead opts to paint this account in the broadest brushstrokes possible.
Woody Harrelson stars as Duncan Allcock in LAST BREATH, a Focus Features release.
Credit: Courtesy of Focus Features / © 2024 FOCUS FEATURES LLC
What Last Breath lacks in emotional depth, it makes up for in form and technique. The underwater photography by Ian Seabrook is stunning, capturing Chris’s plight with breathtaking clarity that induces Thalassophobia, especially in instances involving the eerie glow of a red flare. Parkinson also recreates the grainy camera footage that chronicled Chris’s shocking plight, raising the visual interest and injecting intense bursts of adrenaline when Chris’s predicament becomes more dire. But cutting to the sea’s surface to include the many moving parts of this risky rescue, particularly the moral dilemma of the ship’s crew, works against the mounting tension of the ticking clock situation.
Despite a few exhilarating moments of terrifying aquatic-based survival sequences, Last Breath mostly forgets its thriller elements. Instead, it wants to relay a remarkable human story in the face of insurmountable odds, but it gets so tangled in its technical details and big-picture storytelling that it forgets to inject life and leaves its cast mostly adrift with little to do. Last Breath won’t leave you breathless, but it does present an effective introduction to the perilous job of saturation diving.
Last Breath releases in theaters on February 28, 2025.
Movies
‘Recluse’ Review – Harrowing Haunted House Horror With Lots Of Skeletons In Its Closet [Tribeca 2026]
A haunted house story is tense, terrifying storytelling when it’s properly executed. There’s been a growing tendency in horror to blend together harrowing haunted house stories with traumatic homecomings. A family member’s illness or death triggers a return to something dark that was intentionally left behind. Recluse hits all the tropes that one expects to find in this type of horror film, yet it manages to push this story in a daring, disturbing new direction that uses sound as a superpower.
It’s a unique lens to experience a familiar story about family secrets, generational trauma, unresolved grief, and the importance of not just legacy, but preservation. It’s a hell of a directorial debut from Henry Chaisson that’s guaranteed to get under the audience’s skin as they’re dragged through this painful, toxic tale.
Recluse is a gothic haunted house story where an isolated audio engineer, Joan (Sasha Frolova), returns to her family’s estate to check in on her father after he suffers a terrible accident. Joan suddenly discovers something much more sinister that paints her family’s tragedies in a very different light. Chaisson’s debut functions as a fascinating companion piece to this year’s undertone, which does a lot of the same things.
These two films make for a fascinating case of parallel thinking that tackles comparable subject matter through a similar lens, albeit in a bigger, less claustrophobic story in Recluse’s case. In fact, it’s the perfect horror film for anyone who was let down by undertone and didn’t feel like it brought enough to the table. It’s a considerably more conventional horror film, but this isn’t meant to denigrate its high quality. Recluse may hit some familiar notes, but it’s a scary, well-crafted haunted house horror story that goes for the jugular.
A gripping mystery that involves the tragic, unresolved circumstances that surround Joan’s mother teases a chilling connection to the recent horrors that have afflicted her father. Joan desperately tries to put these pieces together and give her family some sense of grander peace before she’s pulled under and becomes another victim of this festering curse that’s systematically worked its way through the Wyatt family. By doing so, Recluse digs into some deeper commentary on collective trauma, a very literal look at the “sins of the father” adage, and how one selfish decision can ripple through generations and fracture off into different dilemmas. By the end, Recluse has brilliantly flipped the powerful concept of legacy on its head by illustrating the horrors and sense of entitlement that can be born out of this idea.
A legacy is just another name for a curse under the right context.
”Listen” is a simple but powerful command from Joan’s father that she briefly obsesses over. In a way, it becomes Recluse’s grander mission statement, whether it’s in response to Joan listening to the people in her life, the signals that her body and mind are telling her, or the world’s greater whims. It’s important to reconnect with these grounding pillars, especially when it feels like control is slipping away.
Recluse excels with how audio and soundscapes can create entire universes that are full of rich details that transport individuals to these environments. There’s also a level of objectivity when it comes to audio recordings and the evergreen permanence that they’re able to provide. Joan’s career as an audio engineer makes sense for someone who wants to cling to hard evidence and proof of existence. It provides great insight into Joan without ever getting lost in contrived exposition.
Joan’s entire life is built around audio engineering, and so it makes sense that Recluse features excellent sound design that really goes above and beyond with its production elements. All of the sound design is expertly handled and turns the film into something special. These auditory elements intuitively keep the audience on edge so that they’re more susceptible to the actual scares that eventually strike. The smallest sound effect gets turned into a crushing, cacophonous assault. It’s a really effective way to build terror. Writer/Director Chaisson also handles the film’s music, which achieves a sublime, unnerving dissonance that further heightens the free-floating anxiety.
The story at the center of Recluse is slightly generic in some respects, but the film’s visual language and tone make it feel distinctly memorable. It also doesn’t hurt that the home that Joan returns to is basically an eerie art studio that’s full of contorted paintings. Recluse never struggles to generate mounting dread and terror that pump through every scene. Powerful, thoughtful cinematography consistently reinforces the film’s themes. Joan is constantly reflected in different surfaces or viewed through mirrors. She’s also often confined to tight, constricting framing that all speaks to her refracted identity during this moment of loss and her attempts to regain agency and control by making sense of something that’s seemingly unexplainable.
Recluse is full of truly disturbing visuals that make it seem like Joan is lost in a dream that turns out to be an extended nightmare. It’s a surreal journey reminiscent of invasive psychological horror like Silent Hill, with a touch of Sinister and Hereditary thrown in for good measure. There are so many individual frames that could endlessly fuel urban legends and creepypastas.
It does a great job with how it presents Joan’s fragile state of mind, where chilling flashes of the past sneak up on her and unresolved trauma manifests into unsettling imagery. There are endless shots that are obscured in darkness, or shadow is creeping in from the corners of frames like a suffocating force of nature. It’s very rare that a scene is fully lit. It leads to a very lonely, isolating atmosphere that’s easy to get lost in.
Chaisson’s debut stands out from the many other high-minded haunted house horror films without succumbing to the same pretensions that often drag down these stories. It’s a grief-stricken character study that’s full of upsetting visuals that scratch at something visceral and raw. The horror elements connect, and the answers to its grander mystery provide an appropriate and believable sense of closure. Those who are looking for an atmospheric horror film that isn’t afraid to be different while still channeling something real will appreciate Recluse.
Recluse made its world premiere at Tribeca; release info TBD.
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