Mélanie Laurent's beautifully-acted BREATHE creates its own special, unsettling genre

TrustMovies won't attempt to define what the new and special genre mentioned in the headline above actually is, for fear of unveiling a spoiler en route. Best to simply say that this new film begins as one thing and ends as quite another, with each step along the way providing a believable and enjoyable experience. BREATHE does not so much jump genres as turn into its own, sui-generis example. In the annals of oh-my-god-how-did-we-get-here? stories, this one is a keeper: psychologically, emotionally and intellectually sound.

Mélanie Laurent (shown at right) -- the film's director and co-adapter (with Julien Lamborschini) of the novel by Anne-Sophie Brasme -- is best known as an international actress of some repute (Enemy, Inglorious Basterds and Now You See Me, plus, in her home country, a couple dozen good French films). Breathe is her second full-length feature as writer/director (her first, The Adopted, was not released over here), and by any standard, it's a good one. Tracking the life of a very pretty, intelligent, somewhat shy and unformed high-school girl, the movie stays close to the kind of reality with which most of us can identify, having lived through something at least vaguely similar while growing up.

Parental problems, peer relationships, what to do about sex, and then, finally, the kind of attraction to another person that can become obsessive -- all these are threaded throughout Ms Laurent's narrative easily and gracefully, and the performances the filmmaker has drawn from her excellent cast are spectacularly good without a bit of grandstanding on the actors' part.

In the lead role of Charlie, the beautiful Joséphine Japy (two photos above) gives the kind of fluid, moment-to-moment performance that allows us to see the inner and outer young woman equally well. Matching Ms Japy is her co-star, Lou de Laâge (above, left), who, as the new student Sarah, creates a figure of sophistication, sex appeal, mystery and occasional vulnerability and nastiness that begins to haunt us just as she does Charlie.

The more we learn about Sarah, in fact, the more problematic she becomes and the more we fear for Charlie. What finally happens may be unjustifiable on some level, but it is completely understandable on another. The movie becomes a kind of morality tale of and for youth: Your actions have consequences, children, and some of these will be unintended and -- unfortunately -- permanent.

The rest of the fine cast are up-to-snuff, too: Ms Laurent is able to draw specific and terrific moments from her entire ensemble, with the versatile and glowing Isabelle Carré especially commendable as Charlie's emotionally-abused but all-to-wiling-to-go-there mother.

The French -- ever philosophic and often deliberately contrary -- are particularly good at serving up stories that at first glance look typical, even run-of-the-mill. Then, by broadening and deepening them via characterizations and behavior that are anything but run-of-the-mill, they hook us and take us places we might never choose to go.  Breathe is one of the better examples of this. Miss it at your peril.

From Film Movement and running a succinct 91 minutes, Ms Laurent's movie opens this Friday September 11, in New York City at the IFC Center and on Friday, September 18, in Los Angeles at Laemmle's Royal. To view all currently scheduled playdates, click here and scroll down.

THE MOTH DIARIES: Mary Harron's back, with a taste of girls-school melo-horror

You've heard of melodrama, right? A kind of drama-lite that can still be quite entertaining. Now, the sometimes noted filmmaker Mary Harron (on the plus side, I Shot Andy Warhol and American Psycho; on the more middling, The Notorious Bettie Page) has come up with something I'd call melo-horror. Her newest film THE MOTH DIARIES is now-and-then scary but it also, quite deliberately I suspect, fudges the horror to arrive at something, well, a lot more perverse: a stew of incipient fright, friendship, (very) late adolescence, lesbian love/schoolgirl romance, family loss and maybe budding psychosis. None of which jells but all of which maintains at least passing interest.

Ms Harron, shown at right, teases us with all of these ingredients, and she and her excellent casting department (Kerry Bardem, Paul Schnee and Rosina Bucci) have peopled her movie with a nice array of young talent, most of whom I don't recall having seen previously but who certainly make up an interesting assortment of schoolgirls worth watching and rooting for (or against). The exception -- an actress whom I have seen several times, and who always seems different, and I mean hugely different, from role to role -- is young woman named Lily Cole.

Ms Cole (above and at left) is a chameleon of sorts. Recall her, if you can, in films as diverse as her debut (St. Trinian's) or her most amazing role (in Sally Potter's Rage) to The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus and one of the worst Spanish Civil War movies ever (There Be Dragons). Yep: They're all with Ms Cole. Either she's quite the (not so) little actress, or her directors sure know how to use her properly. Ms Harron does, too.

Cole's role is that of Ernessa -- not the film's protagonist: That would be Sarah Bolger, above, as Rebecca -- the "new girl"/catalyst who comes to the school and appears to change everything. Or maybe not. Part of the oddness (and I admit it, the fun) of the film comes from the fact that things may not nearly be what they seem to our protagonist, who has suffered a major loss and may not be bouncing back from it quite as well as she thinks.

There are sub-plots aplenty -- a helpful or not teacher (Scott Speedman, above) and the various special problems of several of the students -- and even more subsidiary characters to follow, yet none of these are brought to much fruition. Instead we concentrate on Ernessa and her maybe other-worldly powers. And while Ms Cole proves a worthy vessel for our concentration, the mashup of possible horror with the pangs of adolescence and family trauma doesn't finally amount to much: too few scares and/or special effects for the horror crowd, but not enough depth and intelligence for the serious set.

The Moth Diaries (85 minutes, via IFC Films) opens this Friday, April 20 in New York City at the IFC Center. It has also been playing for the past month on VOD and will continue there, if you prefer an at-home movie experience.