Breathless (Respira): Netflix’s New Spanish Grey’s Anatomy Plot and When it Comes Out?
Breathless (Respira original title in spanish) is another medical drama all set to release on Netflix. What we can consider the Spanish version of Grey’s Anatomy is about to arrive on Netflix, a medical drama, directed by Carlos Montero, with many well-known faces from the small screen ready to excite and involve the public. It’s called Breathless and it’s an 8-episode drama series set in the Joaquín Sorolla public hospital in Valencia which tells the stories of doctors and residents within the hospital walls amid frenetic rhythms, dreams, loves, disappointments, and much more. But let’s go into more detail to find out what we can expect from this new Netflix medical drama.
We have just seen Manu Ríos acting in one of the most successful Netflix series of 2023, In Muted but the Spanish actor, who became famous thanks to Elite, is about to return to the streaming platform with a new drama series, from the co-creator of Elite, Carlos Montero, which will see him as the protagonist. The series in question is called Breathless and is a Spanish medical drama about the life of a group of young hospital residents. In addition to him, in the cast of the series we also find other well-known faces from Netflix such as Najwa Nimri from Money Heist and Blanca Suárez from The Switchboard Girls. But let’s go into more detail to find out what awaits us from Breathless and, above all when it will debut on Netflix.
Breathless (Respira): Netflix’s New Spanish Grey’s Anatomy
Carlos Montero, creator of Elite and the name behind this new production, has decided to switch to that genre that has entertained us so much – and that continues to do so (we’re looking at you, Grey’s Anatomy) – with Breathless, the series that promises to join to that long list of hospital stories that have been hooking us on the screen since time immemorial. This time, it is Manu Ríos, Blanca Suárez, Aitana Sánchez-Gijón and Najwa Nimri (accompanied by Abril Zamora, Alfonso Bassave and Borja Luna, among others) who walk through the corridors of a medical center, divided between their vocation, doing what each one considers right and accepting the consequences of their actions, all while navigating difficult personal moments, falling in love, and other professional and heart issues. Sitting in the waiting room of the impressive Joaquin Sorolla fictional hospital that Netflix has created in its studios, they themselves explain to us a little more about what awaits us soon.
Synopsis: An Unprecedented Strike?
The story of Breathless is set in a hospital in Valencia and will focus on the story of daily life inside the hospital of Biel, one of the new residents with the dream of becoming a good doctor. Although his shifts are grueling, Biel wants to do everything to achieve his goal but will find himself faced with an internal conflict due to a strike at the hospital having to choose between fighting for his grueling working conditions and continuing to save lives. This series is a story of lives. of four young aspiring doctors between responsibilities, sacrifices, hard work and unfulfilled dreams.
“Breathless is very close to our very specific reality and has to do with the debate on public and private healthcare, and I have not seen that in other series,” says Sánchez-Gijón when asked about the difference between this and other medical productions. The posters in favor of a total strike that line all the corridors of the fake hospital – which has two floors, offices, emergency rooms, and even an operating room – had tipped us off to the idea.
The plot, which will touch many people closely, delves into what would happen if a public hospital decided to go on strike without minimum services. “It’s a topic that worried me,” admits the actress about the political tone of the series. “The conflict is established in a way that shows you the pros and cons, fiction has to move in complex waters, it is not black and white, and we have had many discussions and conversations about it”.
“I think there is tremendous courage in this series“, adds Suárez. “Not only in the plot itself, which opens the door to a total strike, something questionable and that makes us enter into a debate, but also on the part of the production, the scriptwriters, the creators, and Netflix, which has agreed to raise and put this issue on the table,” he says. “I think it’s a series in which people don’t talk in secret… The melons open wide.”
As crude as it is (“in parallel to the operations we teach,” says the interpreter of The Cable Girls), it is not intended to position the viewer. ” It leaves it open for everyone to draw their own conclusions,” explains Sánchez-Gijón. “I think it’s good not to position yourself and show all the angles, we didn’t want to tell the public what they should support.” ” That makes you think… Thinking is thinking“, concludes Nimri. “The important thing is that you ask yourself a question.”
Characters: The New Doctors on Television
Amid this hospital’s social chaos, doctors, residents, and patients try to survive while facing both professional and personal problems. Although there is still little we know about them, what we can say is that the work behind each operation that we will see on screen has been as hard as it is fun.
“My character is Biel, he is a resident, he is a doctor by vocation and, suddenly, he finds himself in an unusual situation with a strike, many conflicts and situations that should not affect a resident,” Manu Ríos begins to explain about his role, for which he prepared with assistants who taught him how to perform some operations.
“I find it funny that we have taken the issue of operations very seriously, although then there are double hands,” he continues. “We have learned a lot: I have learned how to stitch a wound, how to operate, medical terms…” “I went to see some operation,” adds Sánchez-Gijón. “I was a little shocked, but I kept my distance so I could bear it and it was very useful, actually”.
And the fact is that, although she plays a doctor, the interpreter is not one of those who tolerate seeing blood, neither in real life nor on the screen. “I had not seen a series of hospitals in my life, because I get dizzy just seeing the blood, I am one of those who closes my eyes when there are scenes of this type,” she admits. “However, just because I am not a viewer of this type of series does not mean that I am not interested in doing one, because I find the whole human hive inside a hospital fascinating“.
For his part, Suárez thanks the medical advisors for the patience they have had with them. “They gave us a kind of medical masterclass“, he recalls. “They told us: ‘And now you’re going to learn how to operate I don’t know what,’ and we: ‘Okay, that’s it, I know, I just opened a brain, a stomach, and nothing, I already know how to do it,'” she says, amused.
“It is one of the most curious things about this profession, that suddenly you appear in the middle of a hospital and they tell you: ‘Now you are a surgeon and I am going to teach you how to operate that way,'” he continues. ” There is something about being able to enter such extremely complicated, risky, exposed, decisive and essential professions for the human being that is surreal“.
“And then, well, there are more plots out there…” adds the Cable Girls interpreter while smiling at her partner. While we already imagine some stories thanks to the first images that Netflix published of the series, we still have many others to discover, including that of the character played by Najwa Nimri, although the actress already tells us that hers is the role less linked to the hospital.
“I didn’t have much time between projects, but I really wanted to play this character,” he declares. “A doctor would not have given me time to prepare it because of the way I enter the text: the technicalities, if I do not understand them deeply, I am not able to retain them,” he confesses. “I know when I need more preparation time and when I can start doing other types of things that belong more to the collective imagination.” With this mystery and great expectations, we only have to wait for the premiere to find out exactly what it refers to.
Breathless: The Complete Cast
The cast of Breathless is made up of many well-known faces from the small screen, protagonists of some of the most popular series of recent years from Money Heist to Elite, up to Vis a Vis in Berlin. Among the main performers of the series we find Najwa Nimri (Vis a Vis, Money Heist, Berlin) as Patricia, Aitana Sánchez-Gijón (Velvet, Madres Paralelas) as Pilar, Blanca Suárez (The Switchboard Girls) who plays Jessica, Manu Ríos (Elite) as Biel, Alfonso Bassave (Inside Love) as Lluis and Borja Luna (The Switchboard Girls) as Nestor.
When Breathless Comes Out on Netflix?
Breathless is expected on Netflix soon.
