Last Breath (12A)
Directed by Alex Parkinson
★★★ 

 
 
THIS hair-raising survival thriller recounts the remarkable true story of seasoned deep-sea divers who in September 2012 fought the raging elements to go rescue their crewmate who was trapped hundreds of feet below the surface of the North Sea. 
 
Directed by Alex Parkinson, it is based on the documentary he co-directed with Richard da Costa in 2019 chronicling the same event. 
 
This dramatisation follows saturation divers Chris Lemons (Finn Cole), Dave Yuasa (Simu Liu), and Duncan Allcock (Woody Harrelson) as they embark on a routine expedition to fix gas pipes under the sea. A computer error set their ship above adrift while Lemons’ umbilical cable connecting him to his oxygen, electricity, and communications became severed. With only 10 minutes of oxygen left it became a race against time to save him. 
 
Parkinson delivers a tense and harrowing underwater drama which turns into a search and recovery once Lemons’s oxygen runs out. Cole (Peaky Blinders) gives a solid performance as the keen young diver with a fiancée waiting back home, playing opposite Liu as the moody and silent veteran diver and Harrelson as the old hand, who is on his last diving expedition having been retired by the company. Harrelson is the life and soul of the film providing the light relief although he and Liu look out of place in this drama. 
 
That said this is a film about resilience, teamwork and frankly witnessing a miracle as Lemons survived against all the odds having been without oxygen for almost half an hour.
 
It feels and looks like a made for TV film. It might be best to watch the documentary first. 

In cinemas March 14 

Sister Midnight (15)
Directed by Karan Kandhari
★★★★ 
 

A DISGRUNTLED and disillusioned newlywed discovers that her husband’s cramped one-room abode was not what she signed up for in this genre-bending comedy set in Mumbai. 
 
Radhika Apte gives a tour de force performance as an unapologetic, angry and foul-mouthed young woman lacking any domestic skills who develops feral tendencies as she rebels against her bumbling husband and their new married life. When he goes to work she is left in a depressing and swelteringly hot shack, plagued by nosy neighbours, and birds and goats who mysteriously appear from under her bed. 
 
Written and directed by Karan Kandhari this is a totally bonkers yet bold dark comedy drama which proves tricky to classify with its feminist undertones and blood sucking inferences. 
 
Yet Apte’s compelling Uma keeps you invested and watching as she attempts to escape her domestic hell by exploring the city and embracing her new found desires. It is surreal and keeps you guessing throughout. 

In cinemas March 14 

Opus (15)
Directed by Mark Anthony Green
★★★