A Mouthful of Air has Amanda Seyfried in a performance that I didn’t expect from her. Not that I’ve ever thought of her as a bad actress, but there’s something raw and dark and alive about her performance here that puts her career in a whole other light.

The film is about the mother of a newborn who succumbs to her lifelong depression as she attempts to take her own life. She fails and the film is about the aftermath of that attempt – how it effects her, her husband, her love for her baby, her relationship with her friends and family. And then she discovers she’s pregnant again.

I watched this movie with one sick, sad thought: what kind of cruelty was this script going to subject this character to? What kind of Hollywood film was I watching… and would the move hold up long enough for me to learn whatever distressing truth it was barreling towards? And, who knows, maybe it ends with sunshine and rainbows. That’d be nice.

Seyfried has at least one scene that made me tear up – at first with joy and then with distress. She learns the sex of her new baby and, at first, the raw excitement was pure sunshine… and then, within a second, she manages to turn it into doubt and desolation. It’s an amazing performance and drives almost every ounce of heart the film has.

I’m not sure how much I enjoyed this film since it’s dealing with such heavy, unhappy issues. But I was engrossed, enamored, and engaged with where it was going to go next. I guess if I have any fault, I did start to wonder how long they were going to string us along before giving us the happy or unhappy ending. It was a hair too long. But it’s still a darn good movie anchored by an even better performance.

Score: 85