We All Fall Down

This film is a semi-autobiographical account of a period of time in Martin Cummins' (director/actor) life after his mother died. He's done a spectacular job of bringing this story to life in his first film.

A dark and violent movie, it follows Michael (played by Belsher, based on Cummins), in west Vancouver B.C., as he gets into drug use to escape his problems. His friend Kris (Cummins) encourages him in the drug use so he has some company. Kris has a girlfriend, Ryan, who finds the drugs a bit much to handle and ends up having to choose between the two friends. The ending was a total surprise and worth driving 6 hours to see.

All the actors did a great job of making the characters real and believable. I especially enjoyed Cummins dark/angry/violent portrayal of a man who is losing control of things.

A good portion of the cast was made up of actors Cummins had worked with on the television series 'Poltergeist: the Legacy' and previous Canadian t.v. shows. The part of Sherry the prostitute was written for Helen Shaver. She was hilarious! In an interview I saw before the film she said that she gets to let everything hang out. Boy did she! A side I had never seen and I'm not sure I want to see again. :)

If you get a chance to see 'We All Fall Down', please do!

The previous review gave a good summary of the movie's plot, so I'll just give some of my impressions of the movie.

This is a very solid, touching Canadian independent movie. It is hard to get ahold of in the U.S. (at least right now.) I was able to order it through a Canadian video retailer via E-bay (Viewers Choice Video [viewerschoice@shaw.ca]).

I had wanted to see the film because Helen Shaver won a Genie (Canadian Oscar) for the movie last year, and I am a huge fan of hers because of "Desert Hearts." Wow. Going from playing a cool, elegant, blond, NYU English Professor in "Desert Hearts" to a strung-out, let-it-all-hang-out, chatty prostitute in "We All Fall Down" is a bit of a shocking turn (and very brave!)

The movie portrays the seedier side of Vancouver, British Columbia. As an American viewer who has lived in the South Side of Chicago, I was struck with how nice, civil, and family-centered even the slums of a big Canadian city are shown to be. Maybe niceness is a general Canadian characteristic, even in the bad parts of town.

(Yes, there was some violence at the beginning and end of the movie, but in the way people interacted with each other throughout the movie, the violence was the exception rather than the rule, so much so that the violence seemed like a plot device to shape the movie's theme, more like an effective metaphor for what was happening in the main character's mind.)

Compare the portrayal of the seedy side of life in this movie to Gus Van Sant's of Portland in his first 3 movies. I'd definitely take Martin Cummins' Vancouver over Van Sant's Portland!

I liked the unapologetic portrayal of a young man openly grieving over the death of his mom, who dies of cancer in her 40's. No macho b**s**t there. I found it striking since I am so I used to the hyper-aggressive, mega-macho portrayals of manhood in most movies.

This is a movie for those that enjoy the type of independent film where the writer/director has an uncompromising vision that he or she is trying to bring to life, whatever the commercial consequences.