The Last Breath (2024) is a claustrophobic exercise in tension that stumbles under its own weight
The Last Breath is a predictable but effective survival thriller centered around underwater entrapment. It swaps character development for the immediate and wrenching dread brought by the suffocating underwater environment. While the movie excels at building dread in the claustrophobic, rusted corridors of a wrecked WWII battleship, it struggles to go beyond tired tropes of shark B-movies.
A Technical Dive Into Claustrophobia
The film does best when it embraces the physicality and atmosphere of its world, utilizing the ruined, almost light-less, sunken wreck to create real, unnerving claustrophobia. The cinematography is able to show the disorientating lines and shapes of the wreck and turn the rusted bulkheads and mess of wires into the grave of the characters’ college friends.
The script works against itself when it attempts to use artificial obstacles that lack the menacing danger of this world and instead come across as convenient plot devices. The presence of hungry sharks builds an added sense of roaming danger, however the script frequently sacrifices the survivors’ attempts to escape their confinement in favor of surprise and plot twists.
Character Dynamics and Narrative Friction
The ensemble cast of Kim Spearman and Jack Parr provide a stable aspect in the lively pace of the film, though they can get lost in character motivations that are thin. The interpersonal conflicts in the group, especially the presence of the conceited Brett, feel like the tired tropes of character drama looming in a slasher film rather than a realistic examination of friendship and its limits.
Instead of the overall consensus of the film being just another cliche creature feature, I find that the film actually has an unpolished story that addressing the pitfalls of unfortunate tourism. The financial hardship resulting in the dive as a last resort is a poignant reminder that greed is the largest contributor to some of the worst things that happen on this planet, and can be attributed some of the worst things that happen to nature.
The Last Breath: Ending Explained
(Spoilers ahead) The end of the film is a dark example of how the theme of hubris ties into the fact that the ocean will never care about human plans. The protagonists’ final survival does not feel like a win from skilled planning. It does, however, feel like a surface level truce from the authors of the protagonists’ most unfortunate plans. Because of this, it also reinforces that the shipwreck was not meant to be disturbed.
