The Air I Breathe
Encyclopedia
The Air I Breathe is the 2008 directorial film debut of Korean-American filmmaker Jieho Lee
, who co-wrote the script with Bob DeRosa. It stars Kevin Bacon
, Julie Delpy
, Brendan Fraser
, Andy Garcia
, Sarah Michelle Gellar
, Emile Hirsch
, and Forest Whitaker
. The film was financed by NALA Investments through its production company NALA Films
, and was released on January 25, 2008 in the United States.
The concept of the film is based on an ancient Chinese
proverb that breaks life down into four emotional cornerstones – Happiness
(Whitaker), Pleasure
(Fraser), Sorrow
(Gellar), and Love
(Bacon). The proverb speaks of these emotions, not as isolated fragments of feelings, but as elements that make up the whole of the human existence. Each of the four protagonists is based on one of the four emotions; and like the proverb their paths are inextricably linked to each other, akin to the Finger
s (Garcia) of a hand.
None of the four main characters' actual names are mentioned in the whole film, although Gellar's character's stage name, "Trista", is mentioned several times.
Happiness
Forest Whitaker
plays a bank employee who loves butterflies. When he accidentally overhears a sure bet at a horse race he decides to bet $50,000, borrowing from the bookies. Unfortunately he loses the bet and is ensnared by the gangster Fingers, who runs that gambling/betting pool.
Fingers derives his name from his habit of cutting off the fingers of those who don’t pay back their debts. When Fingers threatens Happiness that he will cut off his fingers if he doesn’t pay his debt, Happiness decides to rob a bank. After fleeing to a roof the police order him to drop his gun. He does not comply, throwing his bag with money into the street, and is killed by the police. When he hits the ground his coat is spread out making him look like a butterfly.
Pleasure
Brendan Fraser
plays a man with a sad past and an ability to foresee the future of the people he meets, an ability that deprives him of the pleasure of enjoying the surprises in life. When he was young, he was forced to defend his younger brother in a street fight against two other teenagers. Pleasure won the fight but found his brother lying dead. Pleasure often has flashbacks of this scene throughout the film. Later in his life, Pleasure joins Fingers' gang and becomes one of Fingers' favorites due mostly to Pleasure's ability to foresee the future of everyone he meets except for one person – Trista (Gellar).
He is set to look after Fingers' nephew, Tony. He has a vision of Tony climbing a fence and falling back. To avoid trouble, he leaves Tony in a club while he continues with his work (collecting protection money). Unfortunately, one of the girls that Tony is with, high on drugs, staggers into the next room. When Tony follows her, they struggle over a gun, and an older mobster gets shot. Pleasure rescues Tony, and they run from the henchmen, ending at the fence of the earlier vision. Tony gets away, and it is Fraser who is caught by the henchmen, and beaten up.
Sorrow
Sarah Michelle Gellar
plays a famous pop singer and dancer with the stage name "Trista" who works with a manager who is indebted to Fingers. The manager uses all of Trista's money to pay Fingers, but that is not enough, and so he gives Trista's contract to Fingers. Trista escapes from Fingers and meets Pleasure. Fingers, naturally, has already ordered his team to find her. In the meantime, Pleasure helps Trista by letting her stay in his house knowing that his house is the only place where Fingers wouldn't search. They become lovers, but eventually Fingers finds out, and kills Pleasure. She also has Kp(a-b-) blood group, which she reveals when the interviewer asks her what is special about her. This becomes useful information after Love hears it on the television, at which point he is looking for blood type that is the same as Gina's blood type; when he is trying to save her.
Love
Kevin Bacon
plays a doctor who is in love with his longtime friend Gina (Julie Delpy
) but who he never told of his love and, so, she married his best friend. Gina gets bitten by a poisonous snake and desperately needs a rare form of blood that only Trista has. Love tries to get into a building where Trista is filming a new video; however, her best friend is in the process of trying to help Trista run away. He runs to Trista. The bodyguards thinking he is a crazed fan, grab him and Trista is incidentally knocked down, hits her head and ends up in the hospital. When she awakens, Fingers informs her that she will have to abort
the baby that she has just become aware that she is carrying. In her sorrow that the one thing she has left of the man she loves (Pleasure), she sneaks out of her room and goes to the roof where she intends to commit suicide
. Love (Bacon) sees her on the roof and runs up just in time to see her fall. He grabs the bed sheet that she had wrapped around her like a flowing cape and catches her. However, he tells her she will have to come up and grab his hand for him to be able to pull her up. After she does this, the movie flashes to Gina, who awakens from her coma
. Love gives Trista his car as a gift for saving Gina and she leaves the hospital.
Ending
Trista escapes in Love's car and hits Happiness (in the scene that we saw from his point of view earlier), and as she sits at the intersection coming to grips with what has happened, the money he throws from the top of the building falls and lands on Trista's car roof. The film closes with Trista at an airport traveling away and Fingers looking for her in the hospital at the same time.
reported that 14% of critics gave the film positive reviews, based on 22 reviews. Metacritic
reported the film had an average score of 37 out of 100, based on 9 reviews.
and Blu-ray Disc
on May 27, 2008 in the US and includes a commentary, featurette, trailer and deleted scenes. The film was released on DVD in the UK on September 15, 2008.
Jieho Lee
Jieho Lee is a filmmaker from New York City. He graduated from Wesleyan University in 1995, receiving a double degree in Cinema Studies and the College of Letters. He received an M.B.A. from the Harvard Business School. His film, A Nursery Tale , won the Special Jury Award at the Florida Film...
, who co-wrote the script with Bob DeRosa. It stars Kevin Bacon
Kevin Bacon
Kevin Norwood Bacon is an American film and theater actor whose notable roles include Animal House, Diner, Footloose, Flatliners, Wild Things, A Few Good Men, JFK, Apollo 13, Mystic River, The Woodsman, Trapped, Friday the 13th, Hollow Man, Tremors, Death Sentence, Frost/Nixon, Crazy, Stupid, Love....
, Julie Delpy
Julie Delpy
Julie Delpy is a French-American actress, director, screenwriter, and singer-songwriter. She studied filmmaking at New York University's Tisch School of the Arts and has directed, written, and acted in more than 30 films, including Europa Europa , The Voyager , Three Colors: White , Before Sunrise...
, Brendan Fraser
Brendan Fraser
Brendan James Fraser is a Canadian-American film and stage actor. Fraser portrayed Rick O'Connell in the three-part Mummy film series , and is known for his comedic and fantasy film leading roles in major Hollywood films, including Encino Man , George of the Jungle , Dudley Do-Right , Monkeybone ,...
, Andy Garcia
Andy García
Andrés Arturo García Menéndez , professionally known as Andy García, is a Cuban American actor. He became known in the late 1980s and 1990s, having appeared in several successful Hollywood films, including The Godfather: Part III, The Untouchables, Internal Affairs and When a Man Loves a Woman...
, Sarah Michelle Gellar
Sarah Michelle Gellar
Sarah Michelle Prinze , known professionally by her birth name of Sarah Michelle Gellar , is an American actress, singer and executive producer...
, Emile Hirsch
Emile Hirsch
Emile Davenport Hirsch is an American television and film actor. He began performing in the late 1990s, appearing in several television films and series, and became known as a film actor after roles in Lords of Dogtown, The Emperor's Club, The Girl Next Door, Alpha Dog, and Into the Wild. In...
, and Forest Whitaker
Forest Whitaker
Forest Steven Whitaker is an American actor, producer, and director. He has earned a reputation for intensive character study work for films such as Bird and Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai, and for his recurring role as ex-LAPD Lieutenant Jon Kavanaugh on the gritty, award-winning television...
. The film was financed by NALA Investments through its production company NALA Films
NALA Films
NALA Films is a film production and financing company, the production arm of .-Foundation:NALA Films, LLC was founded in 2005 by Emilio Diez Barroso , as the production arm of NALA Investments , an investment vehicle with a portfolio of holdings...
, and was released on January 25, 2008 in the United States.
The concept of the film is based on an ancient Chinese
China
Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...
proverb that breaks life down into four emotional cornerstones – Happiness
Happiness
Happiness is a mental state of well-being characterized by positive emotions ranging from contentment to intense joy. A variety of biological, psychological, religious, and philosophical approaches have striven to define happiness and identify its sources....
(Whitaker), Pleasure
Pleasure
Pleasure describes the broad class of mental states that humans and other animals experience as positive, enjoyable, or worth seeking. It includes more specific mental states such as happiness, entertainment, enjoyment, ecstasy, and euphoria...
(Fraser), Sorrow
Sadness
Sadness is emotional pain associated with, or characterized by feelings of disadvantage, loss, despair, helplessness, sorrow, and rage. When sad, people often become outspoken, less energetic, and emotional...
(Gellar), and Love
Love
Love is an emotion of strong affection and personal attachment. In philosophical context, love is a virtue representing all of human kindness, compassion, and affection. Love is central to many religions, as in the Christian phrase, "God is love" or Agape in the Canonical gospels...
(Bacon). The proverb speaks of these emotions, not as isolated fragments of feelings, but as elements that make up the whole of the human existence. Each of the four protagonists is based on one of the four emotions; and like the proverb their paths are inextricably linked to each other, akin to the Finger
Finger
A finger is a limb of the human body and a type of digit, an organ of manipulation and sensation found in the hands of humans and other primates....
s (Garcia) of a hand.
None of the four main characters' actual names are mentioned in the whole film, although Gellar's character's stage name, "Trista", is mentioned several times.
Cast
- Kevin BaconKevin BaconKevin Norwood Bacon is an American film and theater actor whose notable roles include Animal House, Diner, Footloose, Flatliners, Wild Things, A Few Good Men, JFK, Apollo 13, Mystic River, The Woodsman, Trapped, Friday the 13th, Hollow Man, Tremors, Death Sentence, Frost/Nixon, Crazy, Stupid, Love....
as Love - Julie DelpyJulie DelpyJulie Delpy is a French-American actress, director, screenwriter, and singer-songwriter. She studied filmmaking at New York University's Tisch School of the Arts and has directed, written, and acted in more than 30 films, including Europa Europa , The Voyager , Three Colors: White , Before Sunrise...
as Gina - Brendan FraserBrendan FraserBrendan James Fraser is a Canadian-American film and stage actor. Fraser portrayed Rick O'Connell in the three-part Mummy film series , and is known for his comedic and fantasy film leading roles in major Hollywood films, including Encino Man , George of the Jungle , Dudley Do-Right , Monkeybone ,...
as Pleasure - Andy GarciaAndy GarcíaAndrés Arturo García Menéndez , professionally known as Andy García, is a Cuban American actor. He became known in the late 1980s and 1990s, having appeared in several successful Hollywood films, including The Godfather: Part III, The Untouchables, Internal Affairs and When a Man Loves a Woman...
as Fingers - Sarah Michelle GellarSarah Michelle GellarSarah Michelle Prinze , known professionally by her birth name of Sarah Michelle Gellar , is an American actress, singer and executive producer...
as Sorrow/"Trista" - Clark GreggClark GreggRobert Clark Gregg is an American actor, screenwriter and director. He co-starred as Christine Campbell's ex-husband Richard in the CBS sitcom The New Adventures of Old Christine, which debuted in March 2006 and concluded in May 2010...
as Henry - Emile HirschEmile HirschEmile Davenport Hirsch is an American television and film actor. He began performing in the late 1990s, appearing in several television films and series, and became known as a film actor after roles in Lords of Dogtown, The Emperor's Club, The Girl Next Door, Alpha Dog, and Into the Wild. In...
as Tony - Forest WhitakerForest WhitakerForest Steven Whitaker is an American actor, producer, and director. He has earned a reputation for intensive character study work for films such as Bird and Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai, and for his recurring role as ex-LAPD Lieutenant Jon Kavanaugh on the gritty, award-winning television...
as Happiness - Will MaierWill MaierWill Maier is an actor, comedian, musician, and performance artist living in Los Angeles. He was a member of the IO West house Long-form Improv team "Roberto Alomar" alongside Heather Campbell, Gian Molina, and Kevin Manwarren, which played weekly on IO West's mainstage in Hollywood for 10 months...
as Mr. Park - Cecilia SuárezCecilia SuárezCecilia Suárez is an Ariel Award and Emmy International nominated Mexican actress who has played roles in a number of mostly Spanish language films and television series since 1997.-Career:...
as Alison - John ChoJohn ChoJohn Yohan Cho is an American actor and musician, best known for his roles in the American Pie films and the Harold & Kumar films . He also starred in the critically acclaimed hit film Better Luck Tomorrow...
as Bart - Kelly HuKelly HuKelly Ann Hu is an American actress and former fashion model. She was Miss Teen USA 1985 and Miss Hawaii USA 1993.-Early life:Hu was born in Honolulu, Hawaii, the daughter of Juanita, an engineering drafter for Honolulu, and Herbert Hu, a salesman and exotic bird breeder; the two divorced during...
as Jiyoung - Jason DolleyJason DolleyJason Scott Dolley , is an American actor and musician, best known for his roles on different Disney Channel projects. These include Newton "Newt" Livingston III on Cory in the House, Virgil Fox in Minutemen, Connor Kennedy in Read It and Weep and Pete Ivey in Hatching Pete...
as Young Pleasure - Todd StashwickTodd StashwickTodd Stashwick is an American film and TV actor. He played the role of Dale Malloy on The Riches until its cancellation. Stashwick actually preempted the official announcement that the show was canceled when he announced the cancellation on his MySpace blog on September 25, 2008...
as Frank - Jon BernthalJon BernthalJonathan E. "Jon" Bernthal is an American actor, best known for his role on the AMC television series The Walking Dead.-Early life:...
as Interviewer - Mike CarlucciMike CarlucciMike Carlucci is a professional announcer, most known for his work as a P.A. announcer for the Los Angeles Dodgers, currently the Anaheim Ducks, several Olympics, and the Los Angeles Kings, as well as various sports video games for Sony Computer Entertainment....
as Horse Race Announcer - Sasha PieterseSasha PieterseSasha Pieterse is a South African-born American actress.-Career:She began acting in 2002, when she was given the role of Buffy Davis on the Warner Brothers remake of the popular show Family Affair. In 2004, she appeared in Stargate SG-1 and House...
as Young Sorrow - Taylor NicholsTaylor NicholsCecil Taylor Nichols is an American actor best known for roles in the Whit Stillman films Metropolitan, Barcelona, and The Last Days of Disco. His characters in these films were insecure, stuttering sidekicks to those of the more outgoing Chris Eigeman...
as Sorrow's Father
Plot
Each of the elements of life is portrayed using different characters, with the character Fingers (Garcia) playing the character that intertwines all four individuals.Happiness
Forest Whitaker
Forest Whitaker
Forest Steven Whitaker is an American actor, producer, and director. He has earned a reputation for intensive character study work for films such as Bird and Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai, and for his recurring role as ex-LAPD Lieutenant Jon Kavanaugh on the gritty, award-winning television...
plays a bank employee who loves butterflies. When he accidentally overhears a sure bet at a horse race he decides to bet $50,000, borrowing from the bookies. Unfortunately he loses the bet and is ensnared by the gangster Fingers, who runs that gambling/betting pool.
Fingers derives his name from his habit of cutting off the fingers of those who don’t pay back their debts. When Fingers threatens Happiness that he will cut off his fingers if he doesn’t pay his debt, Happiness decides to rob a bank. After fleeing to a roof the police order him to drop his gun. He does not comply, throwing his bag with money into the street, and is killed by the police. When he hits the ground his coat is spread out making him look like a butterfly.
Pleasure
Brendan Fraser
Brendan Fraser
Brendan James Fraser is a Canadian-American film and stage actor. Fraser portrayed Rick O'Connell in the three-part Mummy film series , and is known for his comedic and fantasy film leading roles in major Hollywood films, including Encino Man , George of the Jungle , Dudley Do-Right , Monkeybone ,...
plays a man with a sad past and an ability to foresee the future of the people he meets, an ability that deprives him of the pleasure of enjoying the surprises in life. When he was young, he was forced to defend his younger brother in a street fight against two other teenagers. Pleasure won the fight but found his brother lying dead. Pleasure often has flashbacks of this scene throughout the film. Later in his life, Pleasure joins Fingers' gang and becomes one of Fingers' favorites due mostly to Pleasure's ability to foresee the future of everyone he meets except for one person – Trista (Gellar).
He is set to look after Fingers' nephew, Tony. He has a vision of Tony climbing a fence and falling back. To avoid trouble, he leaves Tony in a club while he continues with his work (collecting protection money). Unfortunately, one of the girls that Tony is with, high on drugs, staggers into the next room. When Tony follows her, they struggle over a gun, and an older mobster gets shot. Pleasure rescues Tony, and they run from the henchmen, ending at the fence of the earlier vision. Tony gets away, and it is Fraser who is caught by the henchmen, and beaten up.
Sorrow
Sarah Michelle Gellar
Sarah Michelle Gellar
Sarah Michelle Prinze , known professionally by her birth name of Sarah Michelle Gellar , is an American actress, singer and executive producer...
plays a famous pop singer and dancer with the stage name "Trista" who works with a manager who is indebted to Fingers. The manager uses all of Trista's money to pay Fingers, but that is not enough, and so he gives Trista's contract to Fingers. Trista escapes from Fingers and meets Pleasure. Fingers, naturally, has already ordered his team to find her. In the meantime, Pleasure helps Trista by letting her stay in his house knowing that his house is the only place where Fingers wouldn't search. They become lovers, but eventually Fingers finds out, and kills Pleasure. She also has Kp(a-b-) blood group, which she reveals when the interviewer asks her what is special about her. This becomes useful information after Love hears it on the television, at which point he is looking for blood type that is the same as Gina's blood type; when he is trying to save her.
Love
Kevin Bacon
Kevin Bacon
Kevin Norwood Bacon is an American film and theater actor whose notable roles include Animal House, Diner, Footloose, Flatliners, Wild Things, A Few Good Men, JFK, Apollo 13, Mystic River, The Woodsman, Trapped, Friday the 13th, Hollow Man, Tremors, Death Sentence, Frost/Nixon, Crazy, Stupid, Love....
plays a doctor who is in love with his longtime friend Gina (Julie Delpy
Julie Delpy
Julie Delpy is a French-American actress, director, screenwriter, and singer-songwriter. She studied filmmaking at New York University's Tisch School of the Arts and has directed, written, and acted in more than 30 films, including Europa Europa , The Voyager , Three Colors: White , Before Sunrise...
) but who he never told of his love and, so, she married his best friend. Gina gets bitten by a poisonous snake and desperately needs a rare form of blood that only Trista has. Love tries to get into a building where Trista is filming a new video; however, her best friend is in the process of trying to help Trista run away. He runs to Trista. The bodyguards thinking he is a crazed fan, grab him and Trista is incidentally knocked down, hits her head and ends up in the hospital. When she awakens, Fingers informs her that she will have to abort
Abortion
Abortion is defined as the termination of pregnancy by the removal or expulsion from the uterus of a fetus or embryo prior to viability. An abortion can occur spontaneously, in which case it is usually called a miscarriage, or it can be purposely induced...
the baby that she has just become aware that she is carrying. In her sorrow that the one thing she has left of the man she loves (Pleasure), she sneaks out of her room and goes to the roof where she intends to commit suicide
Suicide
Suicide is the act of intentionally causing one's own death. Suicide is often committed out of despair or attributed to some underlying mental disorder, such as depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, alcoholism, or drug abuse...
. Love (Bacon) sees her on the roof and runs up just in time to see her fall. He grabs the bed sheet that she had wrapped around her like a flowing cape and catches her. However, he tells her she will have to come up and grab his hand for him to be able to pull her up. After she does this, the movie flashes to Gina, who awakens from her coma
Coma
In medicine, a coma is a state of unconsciousness, lasting more than 6 hours in which a person cannot be awakened, fails to respond normally to painful stimuli, light or sound, lacks a normal sleep-wake cycle and does not initiate voluntary actions. A person in a state of coma is described as...
. Love gives Trista his car as a gift for saving Gina and she leaves the hospital.
Ending
Trista escapes in Love's car and hits Happiness (in the scene that we saw from his point of view earlier), and as she sits at the intersection coming to grips with what has happened, the money he throws from the top of the building falls and lands on Trista's car roof. The film closes with Trista at an airport traveling away and Fingers looking for her in the hospital at the same time.
Reception
American critics gave the film generally negative reviews, although Sarah Michelle Gellar's performance was praised by many critics. As of April 1, 2008, the review aggregator Rotten TomatoesRotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes is a website devoted to reviews, information, and news of films—widely known as a film review aggregator. Its name derives from the cliché of audiences throwing tomatoes and other vegetables at a poor stage performance...
reported that 14% of critics gave the film positive reviews, based on 22 reviews. Metacritic
Metacritic
Metacritic.com is a website that collates reviews of music albums, games, movies, TV shows and DVDs. For each product, a numerical score from each review is obtained and the total is averaged. An excerpt of each review is provided along with a hyperlink to the source. Three colour codes of Green,...
reported the film had an average score of 37 out of 100, based on 9 reviews.
Home release
The film was released on DVDDVD
A DVD is an optical disc storage media format, invented and developed by Philips, Sony, Toshiba, and Panasonic in 1995. DVDs offer higher storage capacity than Compact Discs while having the same dimensions....
and Blu-ray Disc
Blu-ray Disc
Blu-ray Disc is an optical disc storage medium designed to supersede the DVD format. The plastic disc is 120 mm in diameter and 1.2 mm thick, the same size as DVDs and CDs. Blu-ray Discs contain 25 GB per layer, with dual layer discs being the norm for feature-length video discs...
on May 27, 2008 in the US and includes a commentary, featurette, trailer and deleted scenes. The film was released on DVD in the UK on September 15, 2008.