Movie Review Breathe

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2017 - Spoiler alerts A wonderful true story movie, directed by Andy Serkis, best known for playing Gollum in the Lord Of The Rings. it's the story of Robin Cavendish who was struck down by polio in the late 1950's soon after his marriage and the birth of his son Jonathon Cavendish (who wrote the script and co-produced the movie in his father's honourt). Paralysed from the neck down, Robin (played by Andrew Garfield) contemplated suicide but he was talked out of it by his wife.Diane (Clair Foy). Told to expect death withing months, Cavendish survived until 1994. With help from family and friends he helped pioneer the mobile respirator, enabling him to move in a special wheel-chair and ventilator, so he could live at his family home and even take holidays abroad. He fought to get the equiptment shared with other paraplegic patients in the UK and round the World, seeing the clinical stay in bed until you die hospital regime as akin to a prison. Eventually, long term dependence on ventilators causes the lungs to atrophy and patients are killed by internal bleeding, as the film describes it, drowning in their own blood. As this condition began to kick in, Robin returned to his desire for death, and the film ends with his euthanasia with only his wife and son present for his final moments. A lovely heart-felt film beautifully filmed and acted. Though his situation was disabling in the extreme, Cavendish refused to accept his fate and helped other patients endure too. The message of the film is clear, surviving and living are not always the same thing. The hospitals could only keep him alive, but Cavendish gave himself and many others a life. Youtube - True Love from High Society (also featured on the Breathe soundtrack) Arthur Chappell