Fall hits theaters on Aug. 12, 2022.
The premise of single-setting survival thrillers like Scott Mann’s Fall could be the ficklest narrative structure in all of cinema. I’ve seen snowboarders trapped overnight on ski lifts, sisters entombed under an Olympic swimming pool cover, janitors kept inside bathroom stalls by zombies — and we have to believe each scenario is plausible for an entire feature film. Mann and co-writer Jonathan Frank can’t just present an absurd concept and barrel forward; audiences have to believe characters would put themselves in gonzo peril and rationalize staying alive as long as these protagonists typically last in order for any of it to work. Fall checks all the boxes of endangering foolish climbers who strand themselves higher than the Eiffel Tower, yet repeatedly fails to help us suspend enough belief worth blind situational investment.
There’s no way to set any stage without snickering or shaken heads. Becky (Grace Caroline Currey) spirals into an alcoholic blur after watching her rock climber husband (Mason Gooding) plummet to his death. Fifty-one weeks later, best friend Hunter (Virginia Gardner) suggests she rattle away depressive funkiness by joining her on a thrillseeker ascension up the infamous B67 television tower — once the tallest structure in America. “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself,” as Becky’s adventure becomes a metaphor for her rediscovering shaken inner strength. So up the B67 ladder the girls go, with Becky’s husband’s cremated ashes, while Hunter records footage for her cleavage-forward “Danger D” social media presence — then they face adversity 2,000 feet in the air on the tower’s pizza-sized antenna platform without supplies, as winds whip and their escape ladder crashes onto the desert floor.
An interview elsewhere claims no green screens were used in Fall — only a 2,000-foot mountain with a smaller scale tower — but that’s not to say it all looks natural. Digital effects appear to paint landscapes of dusty mountain ranges, what looks like top-down Google Maps layouts, and dizzying glances through iron-bar panels. The cinematography doesn’t have much to work with but still finds a way to inject wildlife or stylistic flourishes at night when the tower’s red warning beacon flashes on the girls — yet some of those dangle shots of the actors are distractingly ugly. The first rule of absurd survival thrills is ensuring audiences can embrace each terrifying moment, which Fall fails when it’s evident actors are swinging above an unexceptionally rendered drop below. Mason Gooding’s plunge especially isn’t winning special effects awards.
The counterpoint to these gripes? Grace Caroline Currey and Virginia Gardner. While their character motivations and dialogue aren’t airtight, the actresses make the most of their teeter-tower predicament. Fall isn’t an emotional epic between Becky’s heartbreak and Hunter’s somewhat dickish regard for Becky. Still, the performers sell the dangers of clutching a steel pyre with no railings or safeguards. Jeffrey Dean Morgan is a non-entity as a worried father, and Gooding isn’t around very long, which means Fall rests squarely on the shoulders of Currey and Gardner. Their characters bicker about subplot twists and banter as once-fearless explorers, but Fall is never outright boring because of their presence. Mann’s post-production team may slack, but Currey and Gardner aren’t as unreliable.
Of course, secluded survival thrillers live and die by their ability to jump plotted hurdles. Fall isolates Becky and Hunter due to the latter prankster’s stupidity as she shakes the rickety ladder they’re climbing in an attempt to startle Becky — because friends make friends believe they’re about to freefall to their demise. Mann’s not quiet about every mistake the girls make as loose bolts crater on the ground after excessive clownery, but he’s less careful about what happens afterward. Becky and Hunter are given binoculars, a flare gun, smartphones with no service, and a rechargeable drone as tools — along with physical ailments with miraculously mild side effects, like Becky’s festering wound and Hunter’s shredded hands. Over and over again, Fall asks us to believe unbelievable feats of inhuman perseverance, all with Becky’s overarching reclamation arc in our minds. Thematically, we understand why Becky’s able to battle against (animated) vultures and display muscular exertion despite dehydration and fatigue, plus countless other twists, all necessary to keep excitement circulating — but “realistically,” we’re left struggling, like so many other survival scenarios that have come before.
Odd how Mann and Frank devote so much (comparative) screen time and character development to Hunter’s boobs yet leave so many other storytelling elements dangling in the wind.
from IGN Reviews https://ift.tt/ZOciDz8
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