A Mouthful of Air

★★★

In A Mouthful of Air, author/director Amy Koppelman (I Smile Again) adapts her 2003 novel of the identical title to inform the story of recent mother Julie, (Amanda Seyfried, Mamma Mia!), who unsuccessfully makes an attempt to take her personal life shortly earlier than her youngster’s first birthday; she then strives to deal with destructive ideas and emotions she will’t shake.

Julie is a kids’s novelist, and the film begins together with her caring for her toddler son Teddy in a Manhattan house she shares together with her husband Ethan, performed by Finn Wittrock (La La Land). After kissing Ethan goodbye within the morning, Julie locations Teddy in an exersaucer and, earlier than her sister-in-law Lucy (Jennifer Carpenter) arrives together with her child for a playdate, she sits on her rest room flooring and slices her wrists with an X-acto knife. It’s not instantly apparent that Julie has tried suicide, simply as her causes for her estrangement from her father (Michael Gaston, Unforgettable) are additionally unapparent.

Glimpses of a drafting desk and what look like blueprints counsel that Ethan is an architect, however like practically each character right here, he exists mainly as a satellite tv for pc of Julie and her deepening, all-consuming ache. Julie receives steering and pharmaceutical therapy from an avuncular psychiatrist (Paul Giamatti, Sideways), and her mom (Amy Irving, Carrie) is supportive however very involved with appearances. She tells Julie of the necessity for “reset and letting everybody know you’re okay” as if different’s folks’s consolation have been the principle concern.

In her first confrontation with Julie since her suicide try, Ethan’s sister Lucy can’t include her anger and damage over being the one who, together with her personal younger youngster in tow, discovered Julie unconscious and bloody on the toilet flooring. “It’s all the time about you, Julie,” Lucy says — callously, sure, but additionally expressing the comprehensible trauma, frustration, and terror of being shut out of one thing so devastating at the same time as one is instantly affected by it.

Koppleman’s intimate understanding of the disgrace and struggling that accompany postpartum despair is the saving grace of this debut. Any dad or mum, no matter psychological well being standing, is aware of the anxiousness that accompanies not feeling like “sufficient” for his or her youngster. Fear and worry that their youngster(ren) will in the future develop to hate them, retains dad and mom up at night time and steals the dear joyful moments from them through the day. Koppleman’s use of animated interludes, a fractured chronology, and an admittedly touchingly haunted efficiency from Seyfried all serve to painting the message that it’s futile to argue with mind chemistry.

Postpartum well being is a largely ignored subject in twenty first century society however one which deeply impacts massive numbers of household every year, usually silently and completely. If this movie does something for the viewers, it speaks up and attracts consideration to a vital well being subject. And maybe it’ll both enlighten or encourage those that need assistance to hunt it or help these of their lives who do.