From Omeleto.
A doctor treats a patient.
REMEMBER TO BREATHE is used with permission from Joe Simmons. Learn more at https://josephsimmons.co.uk.
Charlie is a junior doctor heading into a shift at the hospital. He’s immediately launched into a stressful situation, treating a patient named Samantha, who he later discovers will likely die overnight.
Throughout a hectic day, his work is full of stress and admin tasks, though he manages to form a connection with Samantha. Samantha reminds him to make time for the things and people that are important — something that hits him hard when their time together ends.
Directed and written by Joe Simmons, this understated yet powerful short drama captures the wear and tear of the medical profession, succinctly charting the busy yet sometimes soul-wearying day of a young doctor in a hospital emergency room. With naturalistic visuals, dynamic camerawork and an off-kilter sense of rhythm in the editing, we are emotionally immersed in Charlie’s day and see the toll it takes on him in subtle yet unmistakable ways.
The film is briskly paced, veering from one moment to another with jagged editing cuts. The storytelling often focuses on Charlie’s "in-between" moments when he’s alone, giving a sense of being preoccupied, scattered and pulled between multiple situations. A slow portrait builds: of a medical professional whose work atomizes his sense of being into fragments instead of wholeness. With pared-down dialogue, the storytelling avoids melodrama, letting the weariness through actor Stanley Rawlings’s beautifully precise, understated performance, which evokes the calcification of a man slowly being ground by the weight of a larger system.
The only scenes that play out are those between Charlie and Samantha. Though they don’t have much time together, their conversations have a grounded tenor that feels authentic, and they form a genuine, open connection on a human level, slowing Charlie down. As Samantha, actor Julie Edwards makes the most of her brief time onscreen, evoking a wise person who has lived a full life. She’s able to break through Charlie’s shell, gently reminding him of what is important in life.
Engaging, concise and yet still moving, REMEMBER TO BREATHE is a simple film if reduced to its workaday actions over a single day. But that simplicity belies a richer perspective, one that Charlie is reminded of through his encounter with his patient — and reminds us how we can form simple yet profound connections through the people we encounter even briefly in our everyday lives. The film also honors the medical profession in an unsentimental but dignified way, especially those who still offer healing and compassion in increasingly overloaded and broken bureaucratic systems. Keeping perspective and humanity can also be quietly heroic acts, especially during the most challenging or mind-numbing situations.
