This is a true story about seasoned deep-sea divers who battle the raging elements to rescue their crew mate trapped hundreds of feet below the ocean’s surface.
If you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you – Friedrich Nietzsche.
When movies claim to be “inspired by true events,” they often elicit eye-rolls from serious film enthusiasts. However, “Last Breath” proves to be a genuine outlier. Taking the foundation of his 2019 documentary of the same name – which featured real recordings from diving equipment – director Alex Parkinson transforms this incredible story into a gripping thriller.
The narrative unfolds around a near-fatal 2012 accident in the North Sea’s depths. The stellar cast features Finn Cole as saturation diver Chris Lemons, alongside Simu Liu as David Yuasa and Woody Harrelson portraying Duncan Allcock, their supervisor. What begins as standard underwater maintenance work spirals into chaos when their ship’s positioning system malfunctions. The vessel’s drift severs Chris’s umbilical cable, leaving him stranded in the darkness with only ten minutes of air – a countdown that drives the film’s mounting tension.
The film’s lean 93-minute runtime keeps the story moving at a brisk pace, though this sometimes sacrifices deeper character exploration. The bond between Chris and Duncan rings true, but David’s role as the team’s newest member feels less fully realized, making his later sacrifices for Chris seem somewhat forced.
Those who dread deep water might find themselves squirming in their seats. For the longest time I didn’t realize I had thalassophobia. It wasn’t until I accidentally fell off the back of a boat into the Atlantic Ocean in Tenerife in 1993, several miles from shore, that I was forced to overcome that fear. The film’s visual mastery in depicting the ocean’s pitch-black depths elicits genuine fear, particularly during scenes where the divers step off their underwater base into complete darkness – moments that consistently drew audible gasps from others in the theater.
What makes this film truly extraordinary is its basis in fact: Chris Lemons actually survived without oxygen for 30 minutes in the North Sea’s freezing waters, something medical experts deemed nearly impossible. His survival, made possible by the frigid temperatures and specialized diving gases, adds another layer of wonder to this already incredible tale. Under Parkinson’s skilled direction, the tension never wavers, making “Last Breath” a standout achievement among 2025’s film releases.
This adaptation proves that sometimes truth can be more astonishing than fiction. Through excellent filmmaking, “Last Breath” both honors its source material and transcends it, delivering a powerful exploration of human endurance and mortality that leaves an indelible impression.
In Theaters Friday, February 28th
