‘Learning To Breathe Under Water’ review: Winning Irish heartwarmer takes a child’s eye view of healing from grief | Reviews

Dir: Rebekah Fortune. Ireland/UK/Netherlands. 2026. 95mins

Eight-year-old Leo (Ezra Carlisle) knows his artist father Peter (Rory Kinnear) is deeply unhappy. “I wish I could pull the black hole out of his brain” he says early on in his winningly earnest, often amusingly deadpan narration. But he just doesn’t know how to connect with his dad, who is still paralysed with sorrow following the death of his wife five years earlier. Charming, moving and packing a powerful emotional punch, Learning To Breathe Under Water takes a child’s-eye-view of substantial issues of grief, mental health and healing.

Carlisle shoulders the considerable emotional demands of the screenplay with a lightness of touch

Director Rebekah Fortune has dealt with these themes before, in 2017 trans drama Just Charlie, which won several festival accolades including Edinburgh’s audience award, and 2016 genre thriller Deadly Intent, which revolved around a boy and his dead father. Produced by Ireland’s Wild Card (The Young Offenders, The Hole In The Ground) and Shudder Films (God’s Own Country, Kneecap) in co-production with Galway-based Eiru Film, Learning To Breathe Under Water, which shot in Galway and most recently played the Fleadh after a Karlovy Vary premiere, is a deeply personal affair – screenwriter Richard Brabin based it on his own childhood experiences. That intimacy, together with a trio of knockout performances, should see it travel to further festivals and into theatrical distribution.

The film largely plays out in Leo and Peter’s once-cosy family home, now almost devoid of warmth and shot with a keen eye by cinematographer Richard Kendrick. An artfully-composed opening shot sees father and son eating together at the kitchen table but framed separately within two arches that divide the rooms. As we will soon discover, the pair are kept at a distance by Peter’s depression. He oscillates between erratic bursts of artistic energy – he’s crafted the inside of the human body inside the garden shed, and the torso of a huge metal shark diving into their roof – and complete silence.

Kinnear is superb as this taciturn, tortured soul who is has locked up his feelings for fear they will completely overwhelm him. With little dialogue, he articulates the weight of Peter’s grief in his every gesture; whether making toast, washing up or having strained interactions with his son, he moves – as the title suggests – like a man underwater.

Leo, too, is a still, intelligent, observant child; with his black and white thinking and finger tapping, he is clearly neurodivergent but this is never made explicit. He is also fizzing with familiar childhood wonder about the world around him – and about a mum he can’t (and, indeed, is not allowed to) remember. At first Leo’s tangled thoughts and questions are confined to his sweet voice over, and his nightly confessionals to the shark in the roof; he can access its body through a hole above his bed, covered with his dad’s Nirvana poster, which hints at the life Peter used to have. Animation is also well-used throughout, bringing to life Ezra’s inner monologues, while VFX renders the shark in the roof as a quirky, slightly uncanny local landmark. (The sculpture was inspired by protest art created in Oxford in 1986).

But then, suddenly, into this sombre home comes vivacious Bulgarian au-pair Anya (Maria Bakalova). With her blond hair, brilliant clothes and continuous steam of chatter, she lands like an alien from another planet and Ezra initially views her with suspicion. While her arrival could have been a mere dramatic contrivance, Bakalova finds the heart of the character – including her flaws – and her chemistry with Kinnear and, particularly, Carlisle is palpable. Anya’s genuine affections bring Leo out of his shell, and begin to give Peter the strength to face his feelings. A sequence in which Peter plays A-Ha’s ’Take On Me’ on his wife’s long-untouched piano is a raw, visceral expression of everyday grief reminiscent of the pie-eating scene from A Ghost Story.

It would have been very uncomplicated for Learning To Breathe Under Water to tip into mawkishness, but screenwriter Brabin deftly avoids such trappings – largely by keeping the focus on Ezra. The character’s observations range from the unintentionally funny to the deeply moving , like his assurances to his mother than there will always be a chair for her at the kitchen table. All are delivered with a clear-eyed pragmatism that, while pulling at the heartstrings, cuts through sentimentality. With his expressive, open features, 11-year-old Irish actor Carlisle (Hokum) is truly impressive in the role, his performance measured and intuitive. He shoulders the considerable emotional demands of the screenplay with a lightness of touch and a confidence that never tips into precociousness.

Similarly, director Fortune keeps her approach subtle, allowing the inner lives of these characters to make their own way to the surface. There are times where the film moves deliberately towards the whimsical – the animated flourishes, Peter’s artistic creations, a slow-motion garden dance – but these are fleeting. The score, from Alexander Remeurs, never overwhelms, while music and sound design work in tandem with Sam Hodge’s editing for effective dramatic punctuation; a song stopping abruptly, the rhythmic pop of the toaster snapping things back to reality. Just as Leo comes to learn about the confusing adults around him, Learning To Breathe Under Water is the sum of all its parts, which work in tandem to create something really rather lovely.