Fall

Holy cow. I think we have another movie that nobody but me will ever like, but, holy cow. This might be the most intense movie I've ever seen.

Basically, an open-air counterpart to "Open Water", as two freeclimbers tackle a 2,000 foot decomissioned TV broadcast antenna, and Things Go Wrong.

It doesn't have the quiet poetry of "Open Water", and unfortunately it has more than its share of overly contrived, difficult-to-believe moments, but what it does right, it does incredibly right. For the first half my palms sweat like I was watching a James Kingston rooftopping video.

So, it's got the survival-in-isolated-situations things, and the climbing thing, either of which is usually enough along to get extreme interest from me. And most of the climbing scenes are very well done. I cannot imagine how they did the stunts and got many of the shots in this movie. There isn't a lot of action but most of it happens very visibly thousands of feet off the ground, far from any visible safety or support. There are a lot of wide shots of terrifyingly precarious situations. I don't know if these actresses are real climbers, or it was all incredibly realistic CGI, or what. Suffice to say: any person with a reasonable fear of hieghts is likely to find this movie harrowing. Kind of like a James Kingston video. (Yes, I've mentioned him twice. Google his videos, if you're curious if you might like this.)

Even before it gets going, the opening scene is one of the most intense climbing scenes I've ever seen, taking place on a cliff face that is very visibly hundreds of feet off the ground, with shots from all angles, including down from above.

I was tempted to say it's a good date movie, but I have to say, I think it might be a little too intense for that. I thought it was, well... too flawed, mostly in terms of contrived-seeming moments, to call great... but still... wow. And it's definitely unlike any other movie I've seen, except, broadly, very spare survival flicks like "Open Water".

Despite the handful of flaws, it's special. This definitely earns some sort of place of honor just for being what it is. I was gripped, and sincerely bothered by parts of it, something not many movies ever accomplish, and a good thing in my book. But I honestly can't recommend it to anyone else as a film to watch. It's too intense.

It's also got a brief cameo from Jeffrey Dean Morgan, who adds some welcome gravitas, despite playing a good guy.

I'm going to give it an honorable mention, even though it's perhaps not as good a movie overall as many I give that to. But the unique things it does well, it really does well. It's just a little too different not to give special recognition to.

EDIT: After writing this I googled, mostly to see how the stunts and cinematography was done. Rotton Tomatoes says, "Fundamentally absurd yet as evocatively minimalist as its title, Fall is a sustained adrenaline rush for viewers willing to suspend disbelief." That nails it pretty well, and though it sounds like hype, it's not an exaggeration. "Absurd", "minimalist", and "sustained adrenaline rush for those who suspend disbelief" is exactly right, and quite possibly an understatement.

I was also pleased to see reports that many audiences responded well to the film. Nice to see, usually I'm the only one who likes these movies.