The Little Moments: BREACH

The best moments in film are sometimes big. Big reveals, big moments, big emotions tying into big realizations. "Luke, I am your father." "Mein Furher, I can walk!" "You can't handle the truth!" It's moments like those that reverberate in pop culture, blaze and sear their way into our collective memories. But I find, more and more, as I dig and expand my cinematic pallete, that it's really the small moments in films that give those big moments weight. A glance. A softly spoken line. A shaking hand that betrays a hidden fear or grief. Little pieces that, taken out of context, might not seem so impressive, but executed in their given story can hit you harder than the biggest plot twist ever. Without these moments, those big ones would diminish, and that's what I'm going to start focusing on.

"I matter. Plenty."

Breach is one of those films built on small moments, which never give way to big ones. It's very uncommon for a thriller, in the modern sense of the word, anyway; the film tackles a recent event but feels like something more akin to the mid-70s, when Hollywood was free of the Production Code but hadn't yet been taken over by corporations. You can easily see where it would be tempting to sex the story of Robert Hanssen up, to indulge and make it a more recognizable spy thriller.  There's the 25 year FBI agent who is really a traitor. The young and eager to impress analyst, yearning to make agent, who is assigned to trail him and also gain his trust. And of course, the stern but noble director whose focus never wavers from her target, but also makes sure the little greenhorn doesn't lose his way. Throw in some neon lighting, eighteen too many camera swoops per scene, and an average shot length of 1.8 seconds and this could've been a Tony Scott film, except the whole story would've been relocated to war torn Kosovo or a train that won't stop, and Hanssen would be recast as Denzel Washington.