Cinéfest 2020: Falling Review

This will be one of many reviews during this year’s Cinéfest Sudbury International Film Festival, to keep up with our latest coverage, click here.

Perhaps it’s only a coincidence that this year’s Sundance Film Festival saw the premiere of two similar dramas featuring two veteran actors playing ailing family patriarchs, The Father starring Anthony Hopkins and Falling starring Lance Henriksen. However. the difference between these films are night and day as the former’s grace and empathy is countered by an incoherent execution that fails to do what was surely a well-intention story justice, resulting in a disappointingly tedious watch that will certainly not be for everyone. Serving as the screenwriting and directorial debut of Viggo Mortensen, the film definitely shows promise but the sum of its parts simply don’t work and go nowhere for the most part thus essentially eliminating whatever emotional impact the film was surely attempting to aim for.

Falling tells the story of an ailing staunch conservative man named Willis (Henriksen) move from his rural farm to Los Angeles with his gay son John (Mortensen) or at least that’s what the plan was. On paper, Willis doesn’t seem like a character that wouldn’t be for everyone and in reality, that could not be any more true. The racist, misogynistic, homophobic (and probably more) man did not have a filter. The fact that his mind was declining only made things worse. Suffice it to say the character of Willis will either make the film or break at it as he won’t be for everyone. Unfortunately, the film makes little to no effort in giving viewers any reason to sympathize with its characters. Taking place using multiple timelines in an attempt to flesh out the relationship between Willis (Gudnason) and John (Grady McKenzie, Etienne Kellici, William Healy) as the latter lived out some old memories (presumably tracking Willis’ trajectory to the man he was today), the jumping back and forth between then and the present makes the story hard to follow while adding next to nothing to the narrative and the characters. By giving viewers no reason to care, the sentimentality here felt hollow.

Despite the incoherent mess of a story, the performances were okay but they were definitely handcuffed by the script. Mortensen was okay as John as his charisma and presence keeps the character watchable. However at the end of the day, the draw for Falling will surely be Henriksen as Willis for better or worse. He commits to the role and does show some decent range as an ailing man but the unlikability of the character will be hard to ignore.

In the end, Falling is an unfortunate misfire of a debut that may connect with some but is sure to alienate many audiences. That being said, there’s still enough here to keep an eye on whatever Mortensen does next.

stills courtesy of Mongrel Media

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Keith Noakes

The EIC of the coincidentally-named keithlovesmovies.com. A Canadian who prefers to get out of the cold and into the warmth of a movie theatre.