The Falling

In all truth I came by this film due to the fact that I was actually a boarder at the school where this was filmed! Spent 5 years there (MANY moons ago), and ultimately the school closed, so me and a ton of other former-pupils were doing the rounds to watch the movie and see our old school!

I then noticed that Maisie Williams and Florence Pugh were in it, so had SOME degree of expectation.

As an ex-Director myself, I can whole-heartedly say that this was the worst directing I have ever seen. Period! The shot selection and scene setting (of which there was almost none) was frankly dreadful and in truth - amateurish.

The story itself lacked ANY sense of position, location, scene setting, plot - I could go on...

It is totally beyond me what the BFI were thinking when they agreed to fund this piece of simply utter rubbish.

When a charismatic classmate dies, her school-friends start to suffer from a mysterious mass fainting fit. Is it supernatural, grief or just a cry for attention? The headmistress (well-played by Greta Saatchi) just wishes it would all go away. It's a nice concept, but the film seems too obviously sympathetic to the girls, without really letting us inside their heads. Oddly, they don't seem to be so freaked out by their condition. Also, the soundtrack is absurdly intrusive, and deflates rather than enhances the natural atmosphere. And there's just a little too much in the way of extraneous plot - budding sexuality, a troubled mother - daughter relationship - to truly build the sense of claustrophobia which would be needed to make the film a success. Overall, it's just a little bit blander than one might have hoped.

Starring two actresses who will likely be up for awards in years to come, The Falling is an offbeat psychological thriller whose intentions are not even fully clear after viewing. Two young teenagers, played by Maisie Williams and Florence Pugh, are stuck in the middle of school crisis when students start passing out for no apparent reason. For the life of me, I only had one thing going through my mind throughout the entirety of the 100 minutes, why was nobody catching these students as they would faint? It's not like it was a few seconds, they would wobble for 15-20 seconds and then finally fall to the ground. Alas, the movie is nothing too special, an interesting watch that is ultimately forgettable at the end of the day.

5.3/10

Always best on IMDb to ignore the entire crop of 5 starred reviews. They are either deliberate plants to puff the film or starry eyed peeps of little discrimination. I really wanted to like this film. More than decent cast; great location; credible period (late 60's) After 20 minutes I was struggling to keep my eyes open. Several people in the audience just got up and left. Can't quite put my finger on it. It kept hinting as social 'issues' but nobody actually verbalised them. Lots of serious thesps giving deep and meaningful looks, but never saying anything. And why do directors think everyone in the 60s chain- smoked....at assemblies! They didn't!

THE FALLING is a film detailing an outbreak of fainting at an all-girl school in 1969. Such events are well-documented in real life and often have the authorities and various specialists puzzled, although it's widely acknowledged that they're psychosomatic in nature. So there's potential here for an interesting storyline.

Unfortunately, the storyline of THE FALLING is all over the place. For the first half hour it's a typical tale of teenage angst and friendship. Things take a darker turn with the introduction of incestuous sub-plots and the like, but then they become ridiculous with the well-choreographed fainting spells. Subliminal imagery abounds, alongside some hinted-at supernatural aspects, but it all adds up to far less than the sum of its components. What's the message here, anyway? What's it all about?

I previously saw director Carol Morley's docu-drama DREAMS OF A LIFE and that was a similar film in that it had an interesting premise but sub-standard execution. Plus, Morley doesn't seem to be very assured at getting good performances out of her actors, and the acting is of a distinctly wishy-washy standard here. I love Maisie Williams in GAME OF THRONES, but she seems unsure of herself here and sometimes just feels like Arya in a school uniform.