Love and independence in the film Fall. Fall (2022): Plot Summary, Meaning Of The Film, Description & Explanation Of The Ending, Similar Thrillers.
Country: UK, USA
Genre: thriller
Year of production: 2022
Directed by: Scott Mann
Actors: Grace Fulton, Virginia Gardner, Mason Gooding
tagline: “Don’t look down!”
At first glance, Scott Mann’s film is a symbiosis of a classic survival thriller and a hermetic drama about people trying to survive in difficult and isolated conditions.
However, the meaning of the film “Fall” is deeper than it seems at first glance. The tape is based on the constituent elements of thriller dramas, but there is no hopeless ending typical for such films, and the main idea is the love of life.
What is the movie about
Brief description of the content of the film Fall. The picture begins with a flashback: Becky, her husband Dan and friend Hunter are climbing a rock. The man rushes forward, but breaks down and dies in front of his companions.
A year has passed since the terrible events, but Becky still cannot forget Dan and is in black depression. Her father comes to her and tries to get her out of this state, but Becky rejects his help. Frustrated, he hints to his daughter that Dan is not worth killing over him like that, and leaves.
Grace Fulton played the role of Becky. Frame from the film.
After that, Hunter comes to Becky and, in memory of Dan, invites her to climb the abandoned B-67 TV tower. From there, she offers to scatter the ashes of the deceased. Becky is less than thrilled with the idea, but Hunter’s enthusiasm is transferred to her and she eventually agrees.
Having reached the top, Becky scatters the ashes of her beloved husband, after which the friends begin their descent. Becky goes first. Unexpectedly, the outer ladder completely falls apart and only a safety rope keeps the girl from falling. With some effort, Hunter pulls her back onto the court.
Catching their breath, the girls inspect the tower in search of a new way to descend. But a smooth post is completely unsuitable for this, and there are no other options. Realizing that Becky’s backpack fell on a parabolic antenna, and telephones are not picked up at such a height, the friends realize that they are trapped. However, they do not lose heart – especially since they find binoculars and a rocket launcher with one charge in a box on the site.
Suddenly, Becky notices the numbers “143” tattooed on her friend’s leg, and remembers that Dan was very fond of all sorts of ciphers. “143” in Danish meant “I love you.” The girl talks about Hunter’s tattoo, and she admits that before meeting Becky, Dan was her boyfriend.
In the evening, when it gets dark, Becky fires a flare. The signal does not go unnoticed, however, the alleged rescuers do not even think of helping the girls out: when they see them, they simply take and steal Hunter’s car.
Ending explanation
Toward the end of Fall, Hunter decides to get a backpack that still has water in it. She breaks down, but Becky pulls her friend out. Soon it occurs to them to send a quadcopter with a note for help. However, this option also disappears: having discovered that his battery is almost completely discharged, the girls return him back.
At night, Becky has a terrible dream: she dreams that Hunter fell on the antenna, died and became the prey of vultures. She wakes up screaming and her friend reassures her: it was just a nightmare.
Virginia Gardner as Hunter. Frame from the film.
Another idea comes to Becky’s mind – to reset her phone. To do this, the girl needs a sneaker and she makes a request to Hunter. To which she sadly replies that she cannot give it to her, because she recently fell on the antenna and died.
Explanation of the ending: the nightmare was actually a reality, Hunter died. Becky’s psyche blocked the terrible event and therefore she perceived her friend alive. In fact, she took all the steps to save herself.
Suddenly realizing this, Becky feels that she no longer has the strength left. A vulture flies to the tower and, it seems, takes the still living girl for a dead body. This forces Becky to wake up and make one last desperate rush to escape. Using a rope, she manages to get to the antenna on which Hunter lies dead. Having scared off the vultures, who have already eaten part of the deceased’s stomach, the girl gets a sneaker, writes an SMS to her father and drops the phone. She then dumps her friend’s body…
After receiving the message, Becky’s father drives to the tower. Someone, having found the body, calls the rescuers and Becky finally descends. The meaning of the ending of the film Fall lies on the surface: the main character’s survival was helped by a desperate desire to escape.
The meaning of the film
Fall is not an existential philosophical drama about the meaning of life. There are no strange mysteries with frightening clues and an intricate plot that involves several interpretations.
First of all, this is a youth rebellious tape with a simple and intelligible narrative scheme. The main themes here, at first glance, are endurance testing and support in extreme conditions.
But not everything is so simple. In their analysis, the audience, trying to understand the essence of the film, found a hidden meaning in Fall. In their opinion, this is more a film about feminism.
The main trigger of the picture was Dan – Becky’s husband, who retained the effect of presence throughout the film. It is he who influences both the main character and her friend.
At the very beginning of the tape, the girl’s father almost directly tells her that the deceased Dan was that other scoundrel. The behavior of Hunter, who came to Becky not immediately after Dan’s death, seems very strange. Why wasn’t she by her friend’s side all this time?
The answer is simple: Hunter, telling Becky that Dan was once her boyfriend, is not entirely sincere. She had a stormy affair with him, which probably continued for some time after his marriage. Once on the tower, the girls realize that he did not like either of them and simply chose Becky as a more convenient option. They themselves had real, deep feelings for him.
Fall can be seen as a colorful metaphor. Its meaning is that Hunter and Becky are not just stuck on an abandoned tower – they are bogged down in their hopeless love for one man. Like a terrible telemast, he, even dead, had a destructive effect on his friends.
Frame from the film.
Such an interpretation may seem far-fetched, but the logic of the plot speaks in its favor. After the tragic death of Dan, Becky was in a severe depression and made it clear several times that she could not and did not want to live without him. However, in the finale, she suddenly realized that life has meaning and from now on she will appreciate it.
This re-evaluation coincides with the moment of salvation. Deciding that she can live without Dan, Becky seems to let him go and immediately defeats the terrible tower. It is no coincidence that these moments are paralleled: symbolically, the telemast is Dan – both friends are on the tower, closely related to the deceased man. Hunter’s death can be explained as her unwillingness to move on. Perhaps she loved Dan even more than Becky…
To summarize, we can say that Scott Mann’s tape is a kind of parable about women who have an unhealthy attachment to not the most decent men. And in the finale, a bold hint is given that a woman can become happy only after being freed from dope. Quite a feminist hint.
The fact is that activists of many fem-movements call on women for self-reliance and independence. Often their calls come down to metaphorical statements like “Get off the needle of male approval.” This is how the Fall ends – and, in the literal sense.
Frame from the film.
Similar films
Here are a few pictures that are similar in meaning to Fall:
- “Shallow” (USA, 2016). The surfer girl goes to conquer the next wave. Suddenly, a shark starts hunting her, which drives her to the shallows;
- “127 hours” (USA, 2010). An experienced climber is locked in a deadly natural trap. He has practically no chance of surviving;
- “Frozen” (USA, 2010). Several young people get stuck on the mountain. The harsh nature, hunger and cold make them realize that they do not know everything about each other.
