Respire

Photo credit: http://www.soundonsight.org

Respire is one I saw in the festival channel and decided to check out since I liked the plot. Two high school girls meet and not everything goes as one would want.

I kept remembering Blue is The Warmest Colour but the only thing that is similar is that there are two girls. The dynamics are different.
Charlie has some problems, a violent father who keeps leaving them and a mother who keeps taking him back. The father loves her though and his abuse is probaby limited to her mother. She is well adjusted though with a best friend for long years, a circle of friends who are loyal and fun and she is smart and her grades are good.

Enter Sarah who comes into their lives like a whirlwind. A transfer student she tells them her mother is an aid worker in Africa and that she has come to their town to live with her aunt. She has colourful stories, a great sense of humour and is warm and generous. Charlie and Sarah become close and Charlie is happier than she had ever been. She even invites her to a holiday she goes with her mother (and their aunt). Everything was great at the start of the holiday but things started to go wrong. Sarah is a moody girl and this affected overly sensitive Charlie. This coldness continued back at school and gradually Sarah starts to hang out with other people. Charlie -who is by now in love with Sarah- just can't handle all this and follows Sarah to her home (after getting suspicious since some of her accounts change from the way she told them the first time). Well Sarah turns out to be the daughter of an abusive alcoholic mother living in the slums of the city. When Charlie confronts her with this, Sarah turns hostile and makes Charlie's life difficult (mostly mean stuff such as giving her number to the perverts, breaking and sullying her locker, writing bad things about her on the desks, telling her intimate things to everyone etc.) however when Sarah's mother beats her, Charlie is the one she turns to. This probably was a turning point since Charlie thought they'll be back to the way they first were but no. They didn't. Sarah started dating a guy outside school and one day came to Charlie's house to pick up her few stuff (she used to stay overnight at Charlie's house from time to time) and Charlie just can't take it anymore. Sarah's bragging about being so happy with her new boyfriend, how they will go to Paris and live there while Charlie will be stuck at this town with her loving mother and will probably live a small, simple life when Charlie snaps and hits her. She hits her head at the bed side table but no harm done until she starts to laugh collapsing on the bed. Charlie this time puts a pillow on her face and kills her.

This film was interesting, the actors were good, the story well told. However I wouldn't call it great or think will seek more films from this director (I wouldn't change the channel either)