The indie cheapness to the camera, lighting and other photography factors hold back a fine taste in visual style, but John Guleserian's cinematography is never less than handsome, with a sometimes hauntingly icy bleakness to coloration that adds to visual lyricism when artistic storytelling is utilized, yet doesn't do so as beautifully or as effectively as the music. Nevertheless, where this film could have admittedly easily collapsed into mediocrity under the weight of its artistic missteps and overambitions, it gets by on its highlights in substance and consistency in style. I wish there was more meat to this drama, I really do, because there are some very effective occasions, but that's all they are: occasions, for intrigue, no matter how present, goes limited on paper by a story concept that is limited in meat, and by storytelling that is even more limited in consistent bite. More than it's not all that meaty, this film's narrative isn't all that refreshing, hitting trope upon trope as it drags along its stylistically uneven, draggy and almost inconsequential path, until it loses its grip on suspense while the grip of predictability tightens around it, further retarding the momentum of what is, in a lot of other ways, a limp drama. Bite is there when Doremus gets the meditative storytelling right, but when he doesn't, it's impossible to ignore the aforementioned draggy spells in material, as well as how, for that matter, there isn't all that much material to intrigue with meat through all of the dry storytelling, as this plot of limited momentum goes driven by characters of limited intrigue, limiting potential whose interpretation doesn't even give you the courtesy of consistently unique storytelling. As if it's not enough that Doremus, partnered with Ben York Jones, keeps things nice and limp in his script, his direction is often too quiet for its own good, placing a sober focus on pacing that, during those many lapses in material, dull things down. Even when its structuring doesn't devolve into deliberate meditativeness upon more-or-less nothing, this film's script is essentially aimless in its being so dragged out by unfocused and repetitious set pieces which stiffen pacing, ultimately halted by lapses in atmospheric momentum, of which there are many. I joke about how, with this effort, filmmaker Drake Doremus really is going all-out in trying to up his artistic integrity and tastes, but there are some artistic liberties taken here, and not all of them fit, as the film will follow a traditionally focused storytelling path, then suddenly switch to moments of near-abstract lyricism that aggravate because of their inorganic incorporation, alone, save their marking highlights in the film's consistency in dragging. Jeez, no wonder the UK is getting a piece of this American project before everyone else, because this is kind of a stuffy premise, which does admittedly make for a decent film, if you can, well, "breathe" through the problems. not entirely be, whereas with this film, you've got classical musicians, affairs with much younger women, and melodramatic family dysfunctions. You have to at least give the guy credit for trying to get a little more sophisticated with his subject matter, because "Like Crazy" was pitched as the trite youth romantic melodrama that it turned to. No, this film is adequately engaging, I suppose, but even Drake Doremus' titling is kind of limp, because before this film, "Breathe In", he did "Like Crazy", and before that, well, I'm not going to say what he did, but rest assured that the title was kind of lazy. Well, "How I Met Your Mother" is just so blasted good of a show to be network-based that we may as well consider it an artistic triumph, which would be cool with me, because I get a lot more fun out of and dramatic effectiveness from it than I do art films like this.
If you know about this film, then you probably know about that song, because this film is so low in profile that it features a cameo by Kyle MacLachlan, whose closest thing to a high-profile art project in recent years has been a recurring appearance on "Portlandia". "Breathe, breathe in the air don't be afraid to care!" Oh, please, people, you know that Pink Floyd was going to be worked in there somewhere, because it's not like I was going to reference Lucie Silvas' "Breathe In", because that is one corny pop number, not so much because no one knows the corny pop number in question.
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