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Falling Movie Review

Falling is a 2021 drama film directed by and starring Viggo Mortensen. Lance Henriksen also stars in this very repetitive, but engaging family drama.

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“Don’t let my son get anywhere near my asshole.

He’s liable to get excited“

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It follows a middle-aged gay man whose conservative and homophobic father moves in to live with him and his husband. He develops dementia, so his barrier in speech is very low. The movie is at the most interesting when being ambiguous – is he just demented or is he behind all of that a horrible person overall? The film clearly hints toward that latter judgment as evidenced by the oddly put together, but at least telling flashbacks.

The drama has this very old-fashioned feel to it. The jokes and insults that he hurtles toward everybody is very much in line with the time period when he was young, which is rare to see nowadays, but this is how people talked back then. He is not only homophobic, but also racist, sexist and just a terrible man regardless of the time when he was raised. His bad temper and his confrontational nature are insufferable.

Lance Henriksen is amazing. This is undoubtedly going to be one of the greatest acting performances of the year as his work here is very believable, nuanced and quite powerful. The more emotional scenes toward the end is where he excelled the most and he inhabited this character confidently through and through.

Viggo Mortensen is reliably terrific, but only as an actor. As his first film, he still has a lot to learn as the third act is messy and doesn’t have a through line while the repetitious nature of the confrontations made the movie feel basically as one scene repeated throughout its runtime.

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But again, as an actor, he excelled in Falling. Watching his composed and calm personality contrast with his father’s anger was painful to watch and his resentment was obvious. Their relationship was well explored, but even more could have been done with this great premise as that third act introduced needless drama from the past to complicate things even further. The pacing and editing are all over the place here, but its heart is clearly in the right place along with the protagonist whose patience is deeply inspirational.

Viggo Mortensen the actor is great, but Viggo Mortensen the director not so much. His first directorial feature, Falling, well, falls into the repetitious cycle of insults and confrontations throughout most of the runtime with the third act being disappointing. Still, the complicated and deeply troubled father-son relationship at the heart of it is well realized, its heart is clearly in the right place, and the performance from Lance Henriksen is truly fantastic as he inhabits this truly awful, hateful and irredeemable human being impressively effortlessly.

My Rating – 3.5