Writer and Director: Viggo Mortensen
Viggo Mortensen is pretty much a one-man band for Falling. He writes, directs and stars in the movie and, in collaboration with Buckethead, composes and performs the sparse score. However, he finds time to direct veteran actor Lance Henriksen to a career-best performance.
In declining health Willis (Lance Henriksen) agrees to move from the isolated farm where he has lived all his life to be closer to his son John (Viggo Mortensen), who lives in California with his husband and adopted daughter, and his daughter Sarah (Laura Linney). But Willis’s mind is declining, and he tends to angrily reject offers of help. Besides, flashbacks to the past indicate he was always contrary to the point of being offensive and seems incapable of letting go of old grudges or forgive what he perceives as transgressions. Willis is liable, therefore, to break out into homophobic, racist, or misogynistic rants without warning.
Falling is a passion project for Mortensen whose late mother had dementia. The fragmented storytelling style jumps back and forth between past and present and so reflects Willis’s confused mental condition as he mistakes his daughter for her mother. There are sequences where Willis’s baffled state is clearly a result of dementia; returning from a restaurant toilet he takes a wrong turn and ends up on the beach and later, his mind straying still further, fully clothed thigh-deep in the sea.
Mortensen’s script takes a sensitive approach to dementia; aware that it reduces family members to impotence. They lack the medical training to respond properly and are aware someone with dementia forgets details and takes offence or is upset if corrected. However, this makes for a film in which most of the characters are pushed into passive roles; not daring to stand up to Willis. Laura Linney appears for a single scene and even Mortensen is forced into an understated presence. Ironically, a hint of reconciliation arises between father and son with them accepting they cannot live in proximity. Despite lush outdoor shots of snowy woodlands and sunsets the film has a theatrical feel – it might work just as well as a duologue on stage.
Yet there is the overwhelming impression that Willis’s behaviour is as much the result of his deeply petty and unpleasant personality as any illness. Flashbacks, in which Willis is played by Sverrir Gudnason and his son by three different actors portraying John at five, ten and fifteen, suggest Willis was always contrary by nature and willing to deliberately create conflict where none exists. There are many scenes of him causing offence with thoughtless even hateful remarks and provoking outrage with his actions; constantly smoking in defiance of rules. Falling is set during the Obama presidency so we are spared Willis’s opinions on COVID rules but he becomes the cliched angry white male who helped pushed Trump into power.
This allows for a tremendous central performance from Lance Henriksen who does not hesitate to demonstrate Willis’s childish self-pitying nature. Whether he has been nursing a grudge all along or his medical condition has brought the memory to the surface, but Willis’s behaviour seems to be caused by his resentment at his first wife seeking divorce. Rather than a dignified rage against the dying of the light Willis’s anger is the childish outburst of someone who has been hurt and feels others should suffer as well.
Falling is intended as a film that is difficult to watch- compelling the audience to share the frustration of people trying to care for someone who is not capable of accepting help. It certainly succeeds in this objective, but Willi’s behaviour is so extreme as to risk aliening not just his family but the audience as well. It is very hard to care about someone who behaves in such an unrepentantly hateful manner or to relate to the secondary characters whose passivity at times gives the impression of facilitating the approach.
Falling is available on DVD and Video on Demand from Modern Films.
