Breathless (2012)

Not as clever as it wants to be, 29 June 2021

Lorna (Gina Gershon) is convinced that her no-good husband is responsible for a recent bank robbery.  She enlists the help of long-time friend, Tiny (Kelli Giddish), to help find the money.  In short order, Lorna has her husband tied to a chair and shoots him in the head.  Now, in addition to finding the money, Lorna and Tiny have a body to dispose of.

I had never heard of Breathless until it was recommended to me by a streaming platform.  The plot summary sounded interesting, so I decided to give it a whirl.  Overall, I wasn’t very impressed.  The main problem I had is that the film is never quite as smart and funny as it wants to be.  I felt like Lorna’s ramblings were meant to evoke a Tarantino-like feeling, but the writing’s just not clever enough.  In fact, I found much of the dialogue-heavy first half of the film a bit boring.  It wasn’t until the scene-stealing PI (played spectacularly by Wayne Duvall) showed up that things got interesting.  So, even though I liked much of the second half of Breathless, my overall enjoyment had already suffered as I was ready to throw in the towel at about the 45 minute mark.  

Finally, I generally like Gina Gershon, but I didn’t care for her as Lorna.  She gives her all to the role, but for me, she seems miscast.  I don’t see her as a housewife living in a single-wide in the middle of nowhere Texas.  

4/10