Among the annals of subgenres and cinematic niches, the single-location survival thriller occupies a tricky space: seemingly simple and budget-friendly – the annual assortment of shark movies can attest to that – yet also a test of suspense prowess that can easily implode without effective direction. Often pared down a few or just one lead and an immediately looming danger that could be summed up by the title (Buried, Frozen, The Pool, 47 Meters Down), these types of films hinge on precise set-up and pay-off, on engineering a variety of challenges from a limited scenario, on selling a physicality of believable exhaustion and tenacity, on nailing a balance between desperate foolishness and desperate improvisations to be “what would I do” vicarious yet not reduce the characters to frustrating idiots.
So let’s talk Fall.
Director Scott Mann has been active in the action-thriller space for over a decade now. His 2009 debut The Tournament pitted a sizable stacked cast – Robert Carlyle! Ving Rhames! Scott Adkins! – against each other in a Middlesbrough-set assassin battle royale. Fall couldn’t be further in scope and style from that film: two women, one 2,000-ft high TV tower, no way down. A year after a tragic rock-climbing accident killed her husband, Becky (Grace Fulton) still suffers from guilt and loss, dulling the trauma with alcohol despite her father (a brief but effective appearance from Jeffrey Dean Morgan) doing his best to help her move forward. Perhaps release doesn’t lie on the ground but through another daring ascent, a limit-pushing excursion proposed by her best friend-cum-vlogger Hunter (Virginia Gardner). It’s for the likes, sure, but also so Becky can release her husband’s ashes – and her own pain – at the top.
As a narrative justification for characters finding themselves trapped, Fall’s first act is certainly a melodramatic and very now example. The road to the central disaster is paved with slight examinations on online facades worn to mask true personalities and a “life hack” moment that couldn’t be more overly forced set-up for later pay-off if it tried. The first twenty minutes or so are Fall at its clunkiest; despite the believable bond presented by the leads, it’s very much a blunt assembly of plot, more plot, and remember-this-for-later beats.
However, Mann is in his element once the friends begin ascending the rusty tower. Omens of loose screws and unsteady handholds loom over every action, until disaster strikes and the duo find themselves stranded on a cramped platform with no way down. A collapsed ladder, no footholds or phone signal, limited rope, circling vultures, a precarious-shaped radar dish dozens of feet below: Fall wrings a wide assortment of obstacles for Becky and Hunter to overcome, allowing the challenges of super-high survival to escalate with breathless b-movie glee.
Crafted through practical movie magic and surprisingly effective CGI, the sense of height is perpetually harrowing; sharp editing and camerawork seem to find the most vertigo-inducing perspective at every turn. There’s a precision to Fall’s framing of movement and bodies dangling over open empty space that feels honed by Mann’s action experience. Fulton and Gardner complete the illusion through grueling team-tag physicality; their exhausted tenacity and tandem climbing cleverness cement their friendship more than any of the dialogue-driven drama. As an exercise in intense physical problem-solving, Fall nails its cinematic mathematics of how narrow space times plummeting doom times limited supplies times dwindling strength equals ever-ratcheting sweaty-palm tension.
If only the film remained solely focused on that potent mix. Once Fall begins throwing in nightmare jump scares, and the leads’ capable wits give way to egg-drop-challenge-inspired rescue plans, the illogical decisions and weak character drama erode its in-the-moment tactile intensity. Against diminishing thrills, the fact that this is a shockingly familiar reimagining of 47 Meters Down becomes brazenly apparent. As if trying to distract the audience from that revelation, an anticlimactic finale trades the subgenre’s cathartic triumph for a jarringly abrupt finish that feels like someone misplaced a reel while editing. Between the underwhelming end and other narrative frustrations, Fall…falls apart in the end, threatening to leave viewers in a sour mood as the credits roll. But the vertiginous intensity that came before won’t be soon forgotten either.
Photo courtesy of Lionsgate
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