Rachel Annette Helson is a Tony-nominated Broadway producer, an actor whose credits include The Knick, Power, and Law & Order: SVU, and a director whose first film was 2021’s You’re Not Safe Here. In this piece, she writes about adapting the bestselling novel The Air He Breathes without sacrificing her own vision.
When I was hired to direct a book-to-film adaptation of The Air He Breathes, I knew I had a big job in front of me. Written by Brittainy Cherry, the novel consistently tops BookTok’s “Books that Make You Ugly Cry” list; it hit number one on Amazon’s Best Sellers List; and it was recently recommended as a People Magazine Top Romance Read.
Its audience is far-reaching and deeply devoted. So as the director of the film, I knew I had a responsibility to not only the people who discovered the film as a film, but also to the readers who loved the story as a book. They were coming in with expectations, and I better meet them.
Directing an adaptation is different than directing an original film. I usually have a lot of freedom when I’m directing. For example: I love it when actors improvise or make dialogue feel more in their voice. That was a big “no” on this movie. Changing the location of a scene? Nope. Making a night scene take place during the day? Uh-uh.
My biggest challenge on this film was finding creativity within a well-known IP that an avid fan base knows intimately.
I started by knowing the audience.
When Passionflix CEO Tosca Musk hired me to direct, she told me that fidelity to the book wasn’t just a thing, it was everything. Now, as a reader, I connected with the book, but I wanted to know what other readers loved about it too. So my first step in approaching the film was to watch BookTok videos about The Air He Breathes and read community reviews on Goodreads.
I took note of specific lines that readers highlighted and looked through collages they made to see what imagery stuck with them. In doing this research, what became clear was that all readers connected with how deeply the characters felt — and how the depth of those emotions, in turn, made the audience feel.
So I let the emotional journey of the story be my guide. For the performances, that meant guiding the actors to find emotional honesty. For the music, we chose songs that felt raw, natural and lyrical. The color palette was warm for happier moments, and cool for sadder ones.
Expressing the emotional journey of the characters through every aspect of the filmmaking was my goal. I knew that if I could capture that emotion, I would succeed in capturing the essence of what people loved about the book.
Plus, as a director, I could put my own personal stamp on how to let that emotion come through. The songs that felt right to me. The color palettes I connected with. The shooting style of the camera. All the things that you normally control as a director, just with a few more guardrails. My voice, my taste and my sensibilities were still there – and by learning about what readers loved, I was able to hone in on where to focus.
I also learned that the devil’s in the details.
There’s a certain amount of world building that’s already built into a book-to-film adaptation, and I chose to embrace that and include as many little details as I could. During pre-production, I made a list of visual details from the novel. If a character was wearing a yellow dress, it went on the list. The shed was red? On the list. A little girl carried a zombie teddy bear? List.
Also Read: How I Earned the Job of Directing My Lifetime Movie, You’re Not Safe Here
All my department heads got a copy of the list and would reference it frequently. It was a great foundation for our team to build upon, and those small details helped bring the film to life.
Here’s an example: The novel The Air He Breathes was re-released in Barnes and Noble prior to production, and one day, Brittainy, the author, posted beautiful artwork from the new edition on her Instagram page. The leading lady was wearing a yellow summer dress; her hair half-up, half-down. The leading man was in jeans and a white t-shirt.
During a Zoom with Brittainy, I asked about the artwork, and she told me that she had chosen the outfits the leads were wearing. That’s how she had always pictured them. I loved that. I sent a screenshot of the art to hair and makeup and wardrobe, because I wanted to recreate that imagery in the film.
But what I thought was only going to be in one scene ended up permeating the look of the whole film. The half-up, half-down look became the lead’s main hairstyle. Summer dresses became her look. The male lead’s clothes were based on the artwork. Suddenly, the world felt more “lived in” – which is something I’m always trying to achieve as a director. Unexpectedly, diving deeply into the source material didn’t hinder my creative choices, it enhanced them.
Being an Actor’s Director on The Air He Breathes
We worked our butts off to make sure that the big-picture elements and the details of the book made it into the movie — but at the end of the day, this was a movie. And, I needed to make sure that it worked as a movie. So, I made sure to harness my directorial freedom when it came to performances.
I generally don’t expect actors to be beholden to stage directions when it comes to emotions. I try to help them find what the most natural, grounded version of the scene is. So when actors asked if they should pay attention to when characters laughed or cried in the book or the expressions they made, I said absolutely not! There’s no way an actor can be organically in the moment if they are trying to mimic behavior they read in the book.
That means that some moments played differently than they did in the novel. We found humor where there had been melancholy, or vice versa. Blocking was totally different than was scripted. Scenes ended up on the cutting room floor because they weren’t serving the arc of the characters that existed in the film.
Directing a book-to-film adaptation felt something akin to how I’ve heard TV directing described. You’re making this for an audience that knows and loves the story and doesn’t want you to stray too far from the story they know and love. But if you don’t elevate the material, you haven’t done your job.
When I started this film, I was nervous that I wouldn’t be able to find that balance. After all, it’s not what I’m used to, coming from the indie world.
But I was surprised by how easy it was to find creative freedom by letting the source material be your guide and focusing on emotional truth in performance. The same principles of directing were there, and while I didn’t have as much control over all aspects of production, as someone that loves the problem-solving aspect of directing: finding the balance that worked for me was an enjoyable puzzle to solve.
The Air He Breathes in now streaming on Passionflix.
Main image: Kelcie Stranahan and Ryan Carnes in The Air He Breathes. Passionflix.