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Following a false lead, Happiness (Forest Whitaker) uses a credit card to bet $50 million on a horse that unfortunately suffers a mishap. Pressured by the owner of the gambling joint, Fingers (Andy Garcia) to pay his debt within two weeks or else all his fingers will be cut, Happiness stages a one-man bank robbery. He stuffs his loot in a bag, makes a desperate dash to freedom, gets bumped by a car, steals a motorbike and runs to the rooftop of a building. Besieged by cops who warned him not to move, Happiness laughs as he casts away the bag full of money. The cops start shooting and Happiness falls to the ground and dies. Pleasure (Brendan Fraser) is scarred by the memory of his little brother’s death when they both get involved in a street fight. He becomes a trusted collector and ax-man of Finger who favors the taciturn and psychic accomplice. Sorrow (Sarah Michelle Gellar) is a lovely and popular pop singer whose contract is turned over by her heavily indebted manager to Finger. She loathes the idea of having Finger as her manager but is bulldozed into the fix. Pleasure, strongly attracted to Sorrow, offers his place as a safe house where she can hide from Finger. Sorrow falls in love with Pleasure. Finger discovers that Pleasure has betrayed him, breaks into the latter’s house and shoots him. Love (Kevin Bacon), a doctor, has long been in love with Gina (Julie Delpy) but never had the courage to tell her so, and lost her to his friend. In her research lab, Gina is bitten by a poisonous snake. Her only chance of survival is to have a blood transfusion within 24 hours, a rare blood type that only Sorrow has. Racing against time, Love searches for Sorrow. Falling into the pit of despair, Sorrow decides to commit suicide. And viewers hold their breath as they watch the final sequence of the film.
The film is reportedly based on an ancient Chinese proverb that identifies four emotional cornerstones as the composite elements of human existence: Happiness, Pleasure, Sorrow, and Love. The major characters in the film personify each of these elements. Only Sorrow has a stage name, Trista; she whispers her real name later to the dying Pleasure. A cinematic semblance of a morality play, The Air I Breathe is preachy and allegorizes the powerful and destructive grip of Fingers (Andy Garcia), a criminal don, on the lives of Happiness (Forest Whitaker), Pleasure (Brendan Fraser), and Sorrow (Sarah Michelle Gellar) in contrast to the saving power of Love (Kevin Bacon). While flashbacks provide the context of the personae, the voice-over expresses their thoughts and insights. If names define the persons, one can easily understand why and how Fingers, Sorrow, and Love are so-named; it is difficult to see why two characters are called Happiness and Pleasure (except for one brief moment of pleasure, perhaps). The splendid performance of the cast makes up for some loose ends in the plot. Some scenes are contrived, seemingly a deus ex machina resolution to problematic situations.
Since the film is didactic, it imparts many lessons, both good and bad. Excessive greed is the nemesis of Happiness and he realizes his mistake too late: “I was stupid. I wasn’t thinking”. He pays for this mistake with his life. Fingers, the lord in a world of gambling, violence, and whoring, also has excessive greed for power and wealth but nowhere do we see in him remorse or retribution. Something tragic is bound to happen when Pleasure meets Sorrow and yet the encounter has deepened and enriched both of them. With these hapless creatures, one wishes that something right could happen to their lives. Could a bundle of money dropping from the sky hold the key to a second chance for Sorrow? One has to move on even if it’s hard starting over. But in the end, let us believe that “Love is stronger than death” for the hope that love brings is transforming and redeeming.
(Date Reviewed: 3 April 2008)
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