Last Breath - a Dramatic Diving Story

How long can you survive underwater without breathing? That was the frightening dilemma Chris Lemons faced at 330 feet deep, and told in the newly released film Last Breath. Based on a true story, the heart-pounding feature film follows the story of seasoned commercial divers battling the elements deep below the ocean's surface.

Directed by Alex Parkinson and written by Parkinson, Mitchell LaFortune, and David Brooks, it is a scripted version of the 2019 documentary that Parkinson codirected. It relates the story of Chris Lemons (played by Woody Harrelson), who had his umbilical cable severed while saturation diving, trapping him 330 feet down without heat, light, and little breathing gas remaining in his backup tank.

Lemons and two others were supported by the dive support vessel Bibby Topaz when its dynamic positioning system failed, causing it to drift and drag the divers away from where they were working. Eventually, it snapped the umbilical tether that provided Lemons with the heliox, leaving him with only five minutes of gas in the cylinders he carried on his back. It is a remarkable, heart-pounding story, and I'll stop there rather than spoil the film.

Last Breath was released on February 28, too late for me to review it for this issue. Having seen the documentary but not this film, I can only quote critic Lindsay Bahr of the Associated Press, who wrote, "It feels strange to want a movie to be longer, but in the case of Last Breath, I was both desperate for it to end, for anxiety reasons, and also wanting more."

- John Bantin