One of my favourite comedy series Grace and Frankie is about two older women who have hated each other since they can remember, becoming friends. The series opens with Grace’s husband Robert and Frankie’s husband Sol telling their respective wives that they want to divorce them and marry each other. In the morning following this revelation and subsequent upheaval of everybody’s lives, there is a wonderful juxtaposition of two “breathing scenes”: Grace and Frankie sitting dishevelled and slumped over at the kitchen table, and Robert and Sol lying in bed, waking up to their new life together.
Frankie: It’s hard to breathe, isn’t it?
Grace: Maybe I’ll wash my hair.
Frankie: Why?
Grace: It’s what people do.
Frankie: I don’t feel like a person.
Grace: Me neither. Maybe I’ll crawl into bed.
Frankie: Or a hole. I’d like to crawl into one of those for about a month.
Grace: I don’t know what to do.
Frankie: Breathe.
cut to Robert and Sol
Robert: This is the first time in 20 years I feel like I could breathe.
Sol: I would like to climb out on the roof and shout out, “I am a homosexual in love with Robert Hanson, who is also a homosexual.”
Robert: Okay, well, let’s have breakfast first. And then go to work, and then let’s not do that.