August Falls

This has nothing to do with the month of August, but August is a boy of twenty who lives alone with his mother and falls to his death from some balcony for no evident reason at all - it looks like suicide, but he had no dark thoughts or sides but was gay, which his mother learns after his death and never suspected. Many loved him, both men and girls, so he had absolutely no reason to kill himself, so someone could have pushed him, and the murder theory starts growing in the mother's mind. But he had some risky contacts as well, connected with the drug business, so it's the usual mess of possibilities with no loose thread to start pulling at. Of course the police are never consulted on the case as they should have been from the beginning, so the whole film is just vague hints. We never learn how he fell or from where, he just partied and was gay, and that was all. All loose threads without any end to any of them, and that's how we are finally left, rather disappointed and worn out by a mother's constant grief and her dreams about her lost son, whom she never knew.

'August falls' carries itself as a little bit of a mystery, a little bit of a thriller, and a little bit of a straight drama, while being both more subdued and more downtrodden than a lot of possibly comparable titles. Very importantly, those two adjectives describe most elements of the picture. There's simmering tension throughout much of the length, and melancholic sorrow - and even a touch of suspense - but not so much as make a particular impact. There are touches in the narrative of what could be profound, meaningful interpersonal conflict, an exploration of tangled relationships between people, but these aren't given major attention in the screenplay. We get glimmers of range and nuance in the acting, yet too little and too infrequently to be so striking as to grab our attention. 'August falls' isn't bad, but it also distinctly lacks any punch that would make it an essential watch.

The narrative writing feels far too much like a large scattering of ideas was thrown at a wall, and somehow they all made the cut in the same careless disorder where they struck the plaster. A coherent story is told, but it doesn't feel cohesive, or even complete. It's like we got a sampling of a dozen different flavors of ice cream, but less than a spoonful of each - not enough to possibly be satisfied, or feel like we've gotten a real sense of what each is like. There are good ideas here, but none are teased out to an extent that seems like the true focus, or an earnest effort. On the other hand, the great and sudden friendship of Anna and Jonas seems far-fetched, and Anna's attempts to reach out to her son feel contrived. A powerful display of grief near the very end, within the last several minutes, comes across as the most honest scene in entire feature, but it's maybe one minute long at the most. And so it goes, from the very beginning until the end credits begin to flash on the screen - 'August falls' is simultaneously a lot of things, and nothing.

I like John Brian Kirby's score, ambient themes that provide suitable complement for the mood of any given scene - though at times it seems a little too charged for the moment at hand. I do like the cast, and if any performances were to stick out, then Fairuza Balk has the most opportunities (still not very many, mind you) to exhibit her skills. In a smaller supporting part, Ashley Clements nonetheless impresses with her time on screen, not least in illustrating great poise and force of personality in a late scene opposite Balk. I think the movie is well made from a technical standpoint. But I keep getting hung up on the writing that feels much too loose and ill-defined. There was strong potential in 'August falls,' and I want to like it more than I do - but the whole simply does not capture the imagination, and it's hard to get excited about for any specific reason.

This may be most worthwhile for utmost fans of someone in the cast. If you happen to come across it, it's a modestly compelling experience; it at least keeps us watching to see where it's going to end up. Yet even as protagonist Anna very pointedly fails to attain closure - a clear and admirable theme of the entire movie - as an audience we fail to attain emotional investment in the tale, or even anything more than a baseline level of entertainment. 'August falls' isn't a bad way to spend 90 minutes, but I would suggest keeping your expectations in check before you commit to watching.