Breathe In, review - Telegraph The main problem with Breathe In is that the film forgets to ever breathe out. This is the fifth feature from the prolific young Californian director Drake Doremus, and the whole thing unspools at such an unremittingly earnest pitch that it leaves you groping under your seat for a ventilator. Doremus's film is a romantic drama in which an 18-year-old English exchange student called Sophie (Felicity Jones) blows into the lives of a family of upstate New Yorkers, instantly triggering a midlife crisis in the father, Keith (Guy Pearce). A one-time garage band rocker, Keith now reluctantly teaches music in his local high school, and Sophie's arrival makes his dull wife Megan (Amy Ryan) and gurgling teenage daughter Lauren (Mackenzie Davis) look even less appealing than they did before. No wonder: the alternative is a lissom young pianist who lounges by the swimming pool in a tiny bikini, reading Raymond Carver. In her own desperately tasteful, earth-toned way, Sophie is every bit as much of a fantasy babe-o-rama as Megan Fox in the Transformers trilogy, and Breathe In never quite manages to sell her as anything else. Still, the chemistry fizzes convincingly between Jones and Pearce, who both make the best of what they are given. And there is no question as to whose side Doremus's film is on: his adoring camera wills every glance into a gaze, and every brush into a clinch. And yet the film's affected worldly-wise tone and constant recourse to cliché makes us think twice about condoning it. Besides, Jones is a fine actress, but there are only so many tail-wagging close-ups of her an audience can endure. Doremus's last feature, Like Crazy, also mooned over her with the same puppyish devotion; Mrs Doremus, if she exists, is surely by now feeling a touch cheesed off. Check Breathe In cinema listings and times with Telegraph Tickets. Buy Breathe In cinema tickets online.