From left, Simon Baker, Ben Spence, and Samson Coulter in Breath (TIFF)

Breath is rapturously and beautifully filmed, centering on two teen boys’ friendship and their learning to surf the Western Australia coast under the tutelage of an older mentor in the mid-1970s.

Based on his 2008 novel, Tim Winton narrates with some of the rueful perspective of memory from his novel. Pikelet (Samson Coulter), the quiet son of staid older parents Mr. and Mrs. Pike (Richard Roxburgh and Rachael Blake), lives on the outskirts of a small town—his dad’s idea of a good time together is fishing. Now that he’s allowed to ride his bike after school, Pikelet strikes up a racing friendship with the reckless, towheaded Loonie (a scarily hyperactive Ben Spence), son of the town’s violent pub owner.

They playfully challenge each other through creeks and faster down hills. Riding further and further into the woods one morning, they come out to a beautiful beach and discover a group of surfers, and they keep getting up at dawn to gawk at them. The friends earn money doing odd chores around town to buy Styrofoam boards, and they struggle to learn how to surf until they can afford fiberglass boards. Their determination draws the bemused attention of the oldest, hippie-ish looking Sando (debut director/co-writer Simon Baker), the most accomplished surfer on the beach. He starts giving the two rides home in his truck, then a place to store their boards at his house. More and more, he becomes like their guru, leading them to secluded beaches with bigger waves pounding craggy rocks.

With the story playing out along the ocean scenes—the stunning (under- and over water) cinematography is by Rick Rifici—the feeling of limitless adult freedom contrasts with the typical teenage constraints of high school and social pressures, including one involving Pikelet’s first girlfriend. Loonie drops out from vocational school altogether and takes Sando up on every daring possibility out on the ocean. When the waves aren’t right, the boys hang out at Sando’s house, where they find out he used to be a top professional surfer on the international circuit.

The audience isn’t the only one a bit uncomfortable about the mentor relationship between Sando and the 15-year-olds. Always dashing their enthusiasm is his bitter American wife, Eva (Elizabeth Debicki), a former freestyle skier still recovering from a bad injury that not only halted her athletic career but left her limping and in constant pain, despite many operations.

When Sando suddenly takes Loonie off to surf in Indonesia, Thailand, and wherever, Pikelet helps out Eva by chopping wood and carrying groceries. She certainly resents that Sando can resume a life of spontaneous travel while basking in the admiration of his young disciples, but is that enough of rationale for her and Pikelet’s relationship to go to the deep end of Summer of ’42? At this point, male fantasy edges out the realism.

Winton’s book provides more awareness among the characters about how problematic their interactions are than the film acknowledges. While Sando irresponsibly encourages Loonie’s wildness, and Eva is seen as a disruptive presence when she waits at Pikelet’s school, the novel’s adult Pikelet looks back with more regret and cognizance of the inappropriateness than comes across here. Unfortunately, this leaves a discomfort that almost overwhelms the convincing portrayal of male adolescent bonhomie, the gorgeous scenery, and the fantastic surfing scenes.