Breathe (2017)

""Be all you can be" isn’t just an inspirational training slogan, it’s a Hollywood biopic staple. Yes, it’s easy to be cynical about able-bodied actors in tragic Oscar-bait. Especially so when, in his directorial debut, Andy Serkis doesn’t so much pull at the heartstrings as attach a tow truck and hit accelerate. Set cynicism aside, though, and Breathe is a heart-warming melodrama, eschewing darkness and despair to focus on the life-affirming positive."

"It's a plenty good story to tell, but even by the time the respirator takes its last gasp, I was ultimately unmoved."

"Keeps its eyes moist and its upper lip stiff to the last - but its sweeping inspirational gestures rarely reach all the way to the heart."

"While it's a given that [Andy] Serkis can wrangle the digital side, it bodes well for his upcoming Jungle Book that he can prioritise the internal on occasion."

"This exceptional life ... is smothered by a cloying fairy tale romance that turns every challenge the couple faces into a lark."

"Remarkably neither morbid nor depressing given its theme, Breathe brings a stale genre a breath of fresh air."

"Andy Serkis directs a brilliant Andrew Garfield in a flawed but moving take on the true story of Robin Cavendish, who defied polio to make a better life for himself and others like him."

"William Nicholson's script is a stiff-upper-lip ode with spice notes of plucky humour, but lacking a messy intelligence."

"Its noble intentions [are] hobbled by a trite script, flat characters and a relentlessly saccharine tone that eventually starts to grate."

"Manages to make the stereotypes work…"