A suspenseful thriller that stretches credibility, Fall benefits from some spectacular cinematography. So see it on the biggest screen you can.
Married couple Dan (Mason Gooding) and Becky Connor (Grace Caroline Currey) are into each other and big mountain rock climbing. They share that passion with Becky’s best friend, Shiloh Hunter (Virginia Gardner). But then tragedy strikes and Dan dies. Nearly a year on, Becky is still a mess. She’s withdrawn from the world and taken to the bottle and pills. Pleas from her father James Conner (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) can’t talk her round to restart her life. And then Shiloh turns up on her doorstep with a challenge – to scale a derelict television tower, the fourth highest in the USA.
At first, Becky turns her down (she hasn’t climbed since that fateful day), but then she has a change of heart. Shiloh is all gung-ho, capturing her dare devil exploits on social media. It’s soon clear that the 2,000 foot tower they are preparing to scale has seen better days. Rust has corroded it. Screws are missing or barely intact. Oblivious, the young women press on. And then the inevitable happens. Becky and Shiloh are in danger – injured, without adequate supplies and with patchy mobile reception. To add to their precarious position, hungry vultures are literally circling.
Co-written (with Jonathan Frank) and directed by Scott Mann, Fall deliberately teases. Just when you think Becky and Shiloh may have found a way out of their predicament, something else derails them. I can’t say the dialogue is all that inventive, but some of the twists most certainly are, as the tension keeps ratcheting up. Cinematographer MacGregor has done his part to draw us in and hold our attention, making the most of the isolated locales.
Grace Caroline Currey and Virginia Gardner are amiable enough doing most of the heavy lifting. Mason Gooding makes his presence felt is a much smaller role.
Aimed at a younger audience, Fall may eventually border on the ridiculous, but it has enough bite to engage.
Alex First
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Alex First is a Melbourne based journalist and communications specialist. He contributes to The Blurb on film and theatre.
