DVD Review: The Falling

Follow the leader.

Abbie (Florence Pugh) and Lydia (Maisie Williams) are best friends at an English Boarding school in the late 60's. When something terrible happens to them, an epidemic of fainting starts happening throughout the school. 

Spoilers because this movie is pretty terrible and spoiling a few things will help explain why. I'll get the good out of the way: There are some gardens in this film that are absolutely breathtaking to look it. 

That's about it. This movie fundamentally fails at just about everything else. When you have an unlikable lead character, you should at least make her interesting. Lydia is not. Maisie Williams shows such range on Game of Thrones, but none of that can be found here. It's like trying trying too hard to be this bratty, melancholy teenager. I don't know if it's the direction, but Williams isn't a bad actor. It reminded me of Georgie Henley and Kara Hayward in the equally terrible Sisterhood of the Night. Bad movies happening to good actors. Maisie is the only actor that doesn't look wooden in this film, but she doesn't look convincing either.

I also get the sense that only half of the script made it to the screen. Abbie drops dead towards the beginning of the film, and they never say why. Lydia, jealous of Abbie's sexual escapades actually fucks her own brother, and the excuse she gives is "I forgot he was my brother." What? The film had a chance to explore this interesting relationship between Lydia and her mother, but chose to give it two minutes towards the end. It's not a very good pay off for sitting through 90 minutes of a hive mind mentality. Furthermore, I've never seen a film fail so spectacularly at the musical interlude. Scores can be the best part of a movie but the one here is so jarring and out of place, it feels like the filmmakers just didn't know what to do, so they were like "Oh yeah, MUSIC!"

Recommended: No

Grade: F

Memorable Quote: "It was real to me." - Lydia (Maisie Williams)