‘Freediver’ Review: Extreme Sports Doc Offers a Deep and Often Tender Look at a Unique Obsession

variety.com:

Lisa Kennedy Why? That one-word question bobs up more than once in “Freediver,” director Michael John Warren’s often fascinating documentary about Alexey Molchanov, a champion in a sport to which audiences may not have given much thought but won’t soon forget.

Based on a piece by Daniel Riley published in GQ magazine in 2021, the movie begins with an explanatory text block that is pretty much verbatim: “The goal of competitive freediving is simple: go as deep as you can on a single breath and return to the surface without blacking out or dying.” The article mulled the broader human implications of Molchanov’s remarkable breath-holding dives, as well as captured some of the communal bonhomie of Molchanov’s fellow divers.

The documentary hews even more closely to Molchanov’s into-the-deep ascendance. Alexey’s mother, Natalia Molchanova, figures mightily — not just in her son’s backstory but also in the sport itself.

A champion swimmer, she and Alexey’s father, Oleg, separated when Alexey was a teen. After their divorce, Natalia didn’t find herself until she discovered freediving in her forties.