Based on the true story of Cavendish’s parents, we meet 28-year-old Robin Cavendish (Andrew Garfield) as he meets and courts Diana Blacker (Claire Foy.) They marry and move to Kenya soon after and anticipate a lifetime of adventure ahead of them, that is, until Robin falls ill. Polio leaves him paralysed from the neck down, and his doctors (led by Jonathan Hyde doing his Jonathan Hyde thing) tell him that he has only months to live. Breathe feels like an actors’ film. We’re going to be seeing more and more of these in the coming awards season, but it’s a film where the actors’ performances, chiefly Andrew Garfield and Claire Foy in this particular case, are what gets the buzz going more than the film itself. And while the story is extraordinary, truth isn’t always stranger than fiction and only the performances really feel remarkable here. Garfield has had an incredible 12 months, doing more than enough to establish himself post-Amazing Spider-Man, with his Oscar nominated leading role in Hacksaw Ridge, his superior turn in Silence and now his wrenching and expressive work here. As we’ve noted before, a physical performance doesn’t necessarily always mean an active one, and he’s working hard to convey a lot, even while lying still. While producer Cavendish must naturally be very close to the story itself (at its close, the film is very personally dedicated to Robin and Diana), that’s not to say it makes an extraordinary film. It’s dramatically sedate stuff that probably portrays events and memories faithfully, but drama isn’t always the same as reality. Paralysis is a massive obstacle for a character, but dramatically, the adaptation becomes quite sedate when everyone is apparently very accommodating. Robin and Diana are financially uncomfortable and they’re surrounded by friends literally everywhere they go, including a never-better Hugh Bonneville as inventive Oxford professor Teddy Hall, who develops the idea of building a respirator into a wheelchair. There’s a jawdropping aside in a supposedly progressive hospital that shows how big and how badly needed the Cavendishes’ innovation was, but for the most part, the subsequent tour is suffused with a misplaced sort of smugness that can only come from hindsight. All in all, the film’s two hour running time flies by, but that’s mostly because of an odd lack of resistance in the narrative. For his part, Serkis’ directorial debut is a handsome affair, gorgeously lensed by cinematographer Robert Richardson, and there are cinematic flourishes throughout. What few visible special effects there are are concentrated on Tom Hollander’s dual performance as Diana’s twin brothers, and it’s quietly showy stuff in the same vein as the Winklevi in The Social Network. In one dialogue scene, Diana sits on a swing in the foreground of the shot, spinning this way and that while her brothers converse. Later, cyclists glide from one side of the frame to the other in the background to the twins. But in both cases, it’s still for the actors, and Hollander makes clever work of distinguishing his two characters. Breathe is plucky to the point of being quaint with it, but we’re eager to point out that just because it’s performance led, that doesn’t mean it’s merely cloying for acclaim during the awards season. It’s mostly engrossing and when it does tug your heartstrings, you may be surprised at how affected you will be. It may be affected by the closeness of the filmmakers to the story, but as a well acted, competently made, loving tribute to people who demonstrably made the world a better place for disabled people, you’d have to try very hard to take against it. Breathe is in UK cinemas now.