Hold Your Breath
It is quite clear that I am not the only one who feels that the COVID pandemic deeply impacted the horror genre as exemplified by 2024 films. The genre has long included isolation as a theme, but since 2020 put all of us in our homes, the themes of parents losing control because of unexplained evil lurking outside their homes have become more popular and meaningful. Right after the equally kitschy ‘Never Let Go’ debuted Hulu presents yet another tale about a mother gone berserk in Karrie Crouse and Will Joines’ ‘Hold Your Breath’ which screened at the TIFF last month as well. That said, it is certainly supported by a strong Sarah Paulson as this is a film anchored on her performance. However, ‘Hold Your Breath’ is an angry painting of screeching scenes that are not well connected through proper moments of sheer tension to help viewers invest emotionally. It is a film which has sequences in plenty but no drive that has been built up.
The setting of “Hold Your Breath”, 1933 Oklahoma, is the worst time during the dust storms when all resources can be wiped out and people can be lost in seconds. A mother named Margaret Bellum (Paulson) helplessly waits for the return of her husband as she looks after their two surviving children, Rose (Amiah Miller) and Ollie (Alona Jane Robbins). One night, Rose tells Ollie a story about the Gray Man, the sandman figure who exists in the dust and shadow, who “can inhabit your being and make you perform horrible acts.” Could things have been different if there wasn’t excessive dust? Or was it dust for which people went insane and committed horrific acts?
The situation regarding the family of Bellums worsens when they hear rumors about a man who killed an entire family in the neighborhood. Dust, Gray Man, and even an unknown traveler are terrifying for them now. But that may not be the most serious threat. Margaret is suffering from depression and her condition seems to worsen. She has begun sleepwalking and having frightening dreams about nudity. Another isolation in the film Margaret complements Esther (Annaleigh Ashford), a local mother who is also cut off from everything and wants to provoke all sorts of commotions.
It is nearly impossible to envisage the strain of motherhood in the Dust Bowl of the ‘30s, though there is actually a better depiction embedded here about the sheer intensity of being a mother and how that intensity can sometimes be morphed into a kind of madness. It is this kind of a role that Paulson embodies at her very best here: that of a woman who is on the edge and grapples with the possibility of danger to her daughters being manifest either from outside or from within the family.
Ebon Moss-Bachrach of “The Bear” plays the preacher in “Hold Your Breath,” a hallmark that stands out in separate but well-executed scenes, two in particular. In his very first scene, he pops up out of a barn like a more mobile version of Nosferatu that freshly came out of a coffin: a brilliant image in a film that is rather short on them. Later, there is a very tense moment in a dining room where Paulson and Moss-Bachrach perform impeccably. Finally, there is a striking moment when Margaret has to put on a brave face and act normal (is she normal?) around the locals lest they snatch her children from her but this moment feels rather incomplete in the cut.
The beats that weave their way out of the dust in “Hold Your Breath” are not worth recommending it but they do suggest at a superior film lost amid the storm. These incidents are not dependent on the spinning dust of the Gray Man or creative computer generated imagery. They know how terrifying a woman out of her wits and all of them focus on their performers rather than a big idea. After all, nothing can make us hold our breath as tremendously as a talented actress delivers.
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