I just picked this up today from a friend and I was pretty impressed. Boasting an all-star cast including Sarah Michelle Gellar, Brendan Fraser, Andy Garcia, Kevin Bacon, Forrest Whittaker, July Delpy, Kelly Hu, and Emile Hirsch (The Girl Next Door),
The Air I Breathe was a nice surprise. If I had to compare it to something, I'd say it resembles the movie
Crash in terms of structure (which is odd because that movie also starred Brendan Fraser). The story focuses on a few characters and how they are linked together, changing from each to the next, and then explaining how they connect at the end of each segment. For the most part, the similarities end there.
While
Crash focused on racial issues and discrimination and how they effected each character,
The Air I Breathe focuses primarily on four characters, each of which embodies an emotion. Forrest Whittaker being Happiness, Brenden Fraser being Passion, Kevin Bacon being Love, and Sarah Michelle Gellar being Sorrow.
Each person has a unique path that they take throughout the film, and their journey brings them in contact with each of the other characters/emotions. Forrest Whittaker finds happiness in the most unusual place of his all too predictable mundane life, Brendan Fraser finds Passion in a world where everything seems inevitable, Kevin Bacon... well, he loves people. His part had less depth than the others, but it wasn't really his fault. And Sarah Michelle Gellar plays one of the most depressing roles since The Joy Luck Club. It's just... so... terrible. You think she has it shitty, and then she gets it worse. It's pretty awful, but played very well.
The Air I Breathe tends to fall short on certain character relationships, while others flourish and carry the movie. The movie's strength as a hole is also its weakness-- some of the parts seem tacked on in order to fit the "scheme". Kevin Bacon's character for instance felt a bit rushed. Forrest Whittaker's portion was done extremely well, but ended all too quickly. I would liked to have seen more from his perspective. Fraser and Gellar's portions take up the majority of the film, but I didn't mind since they were interesting and well played.
A great cast of supporting actors also added tremendously to the film. Andy Garcia does a phenomenal job playing the antagonist, he's just so damned easy to hate. I will have a hard time seeing him as a "nice guy" in any movie, should he ever play such a role in the future. He's just so damned good at being a dirt bag, it's hard to imagine him playing anything else.
Emile Hirsch, apparently, is a pretty good actor. I hadn't seen him in anything else since his well-played role in
The Girl Next Door, so I didn't know what to expect, but he delivered. He plays one of the most annoying and problem-causing doofuses ever, and does it extremely well. It sounds kind of weird to give props for that, but he did a good job, haha.
On a technical note, the movie's score was done very well. I'm not entirely sure of whether or not the songs were composed or selected, but they fit into the movie excellently, especially near the beginning. There was a good use of "modern" piano combined with a more classical key-sound that added a nice contrast while keeping the general feel the same.
Overall it's a great film and worth a watch. It has areas for improvement so I can't say I'd give it an "A", but it's pretty close and I'm glad I watched it. Check it out if you get the time.
