Director: Joshua Marbles
Distributor: Steven Hellmann, Josh Marble and Chris Alexander
Duration: 102 minutes
Taking The Fall (VOD) – Movie Review
Most people will never get to experience what it’s like to return to society after being removed from it for an extended period of time. Yet it remains an interesting theme for many movies to explore, including Taking The Fall. This coming-of-age drama explores the concept of being sent to prison at a pivotal moment in your young adult life and the feelings that could illicit once you get out. This isn’t the first work of either writer Steve Hellmann or director Joshua Marbles and it shows their experience being put to good use, to pull off a successfully engaging story.
The movie centers around Tyler (Munro Chambers), a young man in his late twenties who has just spent six years in prison for marijuana charges after taking the fall for the drug-related antics he and some friends got up to in college. With his sentence completed, Tyler is dumped back into everyday life and picked up by his friend Justin (Roland Buck III), who has offered to give him a place to stay until he gets back on his feet. To celebrate Tyler’s release from prison, Justin invited their old friend group to get together again for a dinner party. Among those invited is Tyler’s old crush Kate (Katie Gill) who has since moved on with her life.
What unfolds is an interesting look at the pressure faced by millennials in our everyday society and the way friendships and people can drift apart over time, as Tyler slowly uncovers and expresses his mixed feelings over the way his friends have been spending their important young adult years. Years that he has been unequivocally robbed of. The movie has a strong sense of bittersweet sadness in it, while not becoming depressing.
The plot unfolds mainly through dialogue and has an extremely slow feel to it. The entire movie centers around one dinner party, never moving beyond the house in terms of scenery and all taking place across that one evening. Every scene is in essence another round of different people talking about something, following Tyler slowly reconnecting with his old buds and learning what they’ve been up to since he’s been jailed. Overall, not the worst thing in the world, since the story is gripping and relatable, especially for a younger audience. But it can have the effect of making the film feel longwinded at times, with not enough excitement to break the monotony of watching continual conversations take place. Some scenes sadly just drag on too long to remain interesting.
What definitely saves the movie from becoming a complete snorefest at times is the excellent acting. If there ever was a movie that proved you don’t need a star-studded cast to puff up your rating, Taking The Fall is the one to do it. The emotional nuance these actors manage to bring to their performances is what gives the story its impact and makes the long stretches of dialogue tolerable, bringing life to the characters. Even if that dialogue sometimes manages to be a little too ‘woke’ – since it’s a movie about millennials you’re bound to get some meme references thrown in – the acting brings them so sincerely you can’t mind them too much. And with characters that tend to be selfish or a little less likable, it helps that the actors are good enough to pull these roles off.
As a VOD, Taking The Fall does not have any extras. Should there be a possible DVD release in the future, we do hope to see some. Especially a director’s cut commentary would be a great opportunity to expand further on what went into the making of this movie and the thoughts behind its story. Deleted scenes might also be a good bonus, assuming there are any.
Conclusion
Taking The Fall is a stunning look into the deeper struggles of starting out your life when you’re in your twenties and just beginning to figure out where you’re going to go in the future. By using Tyler as an outside perspective, getting different experiences highlighted feels natural and the acting makes the slower pace bearable for the average length of the movie. Overall, the movie has a message of optimism too, keeping it from being too moody in these already hard times. Especially people in their twenties will be sure to take something relatable out of this.
Taking The Fall (VOD) - Movie Review,
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