Searchlight Pictures
In the 1933 Oklahoma Panhandle, there’s no escaping the dust, which creeps through every crevice to coat floors, tables, countertops, and the pillows upon which mothers and children lay their heads. It’s an environmental scourge of biblical proportions, and constant sweeping and abundant insulation do little to stop it from encasing everything in a fine film. Even lungs aren’t immune from this plague, and though masks are a help, they’re incapable of staving off coughing and the scarlet fever that inevitably follows, dooming all to a fatally arid fate.
Hold Your Breath, which premieres on Hulu Oct. 3, immerses itself in this barren landscape, finding pioneers struggling to survive with minimal water, fewer crops, and almost no male protection. Margaret (Sarah Paulson) is one of those individuals, having been left to care for her daughters Rose (Amiah Miller) and Ollie (Alona Jane Robbins) without the assistance of her husband, who’s recently departed with others for a job building a bridge that they hope will provide enough money to alleviate their burden. No matter the direness of their situation, Margaret doesn’t truly want to escape, since that would mean leaving her deceased daughter Ava, whose grave she tends to with a diligence only matched by the meticulousness of her housekeeping.
Margaret takes sleeping pills each night to soothe her nerves, but they’re not enough to dispel her recurring nightmare about a game of hide-and-seek with her brood amidst tall abundant wheat that’s interrupted by a blinding dust storm.
Read more at The Daily Beast.
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