When Sarah Paulson is billed as the lead in anything, especially a psychological thriller, it's almost always a winning combination. After all, she's a scream queen who's earned her stripes, but even her sheer talent isn't able to save this one.
Hold Your Breath had the right ingredients to be a hit: a strong cast and an interesting kernel of an idea for a thriller, but the slow pacing, messy storyline and unclear narrative focus can't live up to its potential.
The story takes place in 1933 Oklahoma, where famine and dust storms bring disease and death. The men of most households have left to find work and the women raise their families while battling the dust, if it doesn't kill them first. Margaret (Paulson) is a mother of two daughters, 12-year-old Rose (Amiah Miller) and 7-year-old Ollie (Alona Jane Robbins), and is mourning the loss of another daughter due to sickness.
Every day involves carefully dusting every nook and cranny of the house as dust invades everything, including the sheets and pillows. Specks of dust float through the air, leaving an unsettling feeling that foreshadows what's to come.
When mysterious noises are heard at night, Ollie believes it's the "Gray Man" — a fabled figure that possesses people through the dust. When an unwelcome stranger, Wallace Grady (Ebon Moss-Bachrach), a self-described preacher, shows up and "cures" Rose of her nose bleeds, they don't know what to think of him.
Karrie Crouse and Will Joines's directorial feature debut uses a few promising means to reel in the audience in, including the tense score and a tense visual treatment. The first time Margaret wakes up from her dreamy green setting and the scene is cut with screams of her waking up, it's an effective jump scare — until it is used a couple more times and becomes predictable, losing the desired effect.
Narratively, the film is all over the place, and the subplots derail the main story. It's Paulson and Miller who breathe life into a story caught in a storm of its own making. Paulson is committed in every single scene, almost as if she's the only guiding light in this hot mess. From grief and paranoia to anxiety, she is able to tie it all together. Even young Miller is promising as she has more to offer to the story as it unravels, and she pulls it off.
Paulson's a powerhouse, but don't hold your breath for this one.