Last Breath (2025) Admirable true life tale from the depths of the North Sea
“It’s like going into space, but underwater”
Through the opening production credits as we hear the sound of waves crashing ashore and a diver submerging underwater, we cut to the murky green bottom of the North Sea, a yellow pipeline festooned with deep sea barnacles, and the first of the film’s simple opening crawl:
“20,000 miles of pipeline sprawl across the bottom of the world’s oceans”
Cutting now to a POV camera angle inside a diving “bell” and perhaps the first use of real life footage scattered throughout the beginning and ending of the film, a diver prepares to enter the water:
“They are maintained by saturation divers”
Cut to black and white footage and again, perhaps from real life:
“Working at depths of up to 1,000 feet, it is one of the most dangerous jobs on earth”
We cut to a stranded diver lying on his side as we fade to black and…
“This is a true story”
From an overhead camera we now see the green and rugged coastline of Aberdeenshire, Scotland and quickly, a single truck travelling to a caravan on a cliff top, past a “For Sale” sign now emblazoned with “Sold” and amid radio news reports of a “red” weather warning for the region in the coming hours and days. As the simple opening credits now continue, the camera circles the caravan before dissolving inside to an excited “Chris Lemons” (Finn Cole) eager to tell his wedding planning fiancée “Morag” (Bobby Rainsbury) that he’s been selected for a deep sea dive starting tomorrow morning, lasting nearly a month at sea. Chris responds to Morag’s unconvincing smile with a cheery “Don’t worry, I’ll be fine” before further trying, and failing, to reassure her with the simple “It’s like going into space, but underwater”. Morag tries to smile away her concerns before adding “Humans shouldn’t be at the bottom of the North Sea” and as our soon to be newlyweds fall into kisses and cuddles off camera we cut to overhead shots of Aberdeen Harbour and the first of many rolling shots to come of the taxing hard work and mechanics involved in preparing a ship, inside and out, for a month at sea.
Quickly we see the arrival of Chris at the harbour side the next day, full of smiles for everyone as he proudly announces himself as “one of the divers” at the harbour reception, before beaming smiles and greetings to any and everyone he encounters aboard ship and almost immediately dive manager “Craig” (Mark Bonnar) and soon thereafter, the biggest of hugs and smiles for senior diver and somewhat mentor “Duncan Allcock” (Woody Harrelson). From talk of preparing Duncan’s bedroom at his soon to be built house back in Aberdeen we cut to yet more preparation of the ship and the all important diving bell, to Chris bumping into fellow divers in the locker room as he expresses that he’s “excited to get in there” and get down to work. As the opening credits roll to a conclusion we see Chris among a gaggle of divers awaiting the arrival of Craig and his soon to be division of the divers into three teams, C, B and A for their 28 days at sea and 4 days of decompression. Chris is assigned to dive team A along with Duncan and “that bundle of joy”, as he points to the emotionless face of “David Yuasa” (Simu Liu). Through welcoming smiles and a handshake, Chris tries vainly to introduce himself to “Dave” (and not David) and after walking away, Duncan laughs at the way the third member of his dive crew had acted brusquely towards the “kid” before describing his experience and abilities far beyond his tender years and anyway, they were both in the safe hands of “the finest sat daddy around”.
With Duncan carrying his trusty pillow and Dave two large bags, they each climb into their “tin can” home for the next 28 days as Craig watches all three dive teams preparing for their imminent departure via multi screens on the deck of the ship. Inside dive team A we see and feel the ultra professionalism of Dave as he warns a smiling yet still nervous Chris that anything outside of their locked door is a “distraction” as Duncan laughs as he sifts through his month’s supply of chocolate bars before reassuring Chris that Dave (or “grizzly”) is anything but and is in fact just like every other diver: keen to safely return home to the warm embrace of his young children. We return to Craig and a final sign off from all three dive teams, the beginning of the pressurization of their respective dive chambers and Craig for a final time:
“I’m turning on the taps, boys. Let’s go for a ride”
Between this opening 12 minutes and the beautiful “Keep Talking To Me” over the closing credits is a gem of a real life tale in between written by director Alex Parkinson, Mitchell LaFortune, and David Brooks and based on the director’s 2019 documentary film of the same name cataloguing the same real life events of a diving accident in the year 2012. Dark, tense, claustrophobic and caustically funny at times, Last Breath benefits enormously from the screen presence and reassuring smiles of Woody Harrelson, similar smiles of innocent adventure from Finn Cole (Peaky Blinders) and rounding off the dive team Simu Liu (Barbie). On the deck of the ship, Cliff Curtis (Sunshine), Mark Bonnar (Line of Duty) and MyAnna Buring (Kill List) all bring their real life characters to screen life admirably well before the heartwarming closing credits climax full to the brim of real life heroes amid a quite extraordinary tale of survival against impossible odds.
Who doesn’t want a feel good film such as this in their life?
Highly recommended.
Thanks for reading. I hope this message in a bottle in The Matrix finds you well, prospering, and the right way up in an upside down world.
Whilst you’re here I may as well brag about the release of my trilogy of recently self-published books. Beautiful covers eh! As the title(s) would suggest, this is my life at the movies or at least from 1980 to 2024, and in volume 1 you’ll find 80 spoiler free appraisals of movies from debut filmmakers, 91 of the very best films appraised with love and absent of spoilers from 1990–2024 in volume 2, and in volume 3 you’ll find career “specials” on Paul Thomas Anderson and Quentin Tarantino together with the very best of the rest and another 87 spoiler free film reviews from 2001–2024.
All available in hardback and paperback and here are some handy links:
"A Life at the Movies Vol.1" - link to Amazon
"A Life at the Movies Vol.2" - link to Amazon
"A Life at the Movies Vol.3" - link to Amazon