We go to movies for many reasons; enjoyment, relaxation, to be inspired, to learn and to escape from our life for a few minutes. The Fall follows two people who use the power of story to take excursions into a tale that on the surface seems far removed from reality.

Roy asks Alexandria early in the film if she is trying to save his soul, when she gives him some communion wafers she pilfered from the church.

Roy, an injured stuntman, creates an amazing adventure and lost love story to mesmerize five-year-old Alexandria. He is stuck in bed after a fall from a horse and may be paralyzed. Emotionally he is in the grips of a great sadness since his girlfriend ran off with the leading man of the movie he was shooting. Alexandria, also the victim of a fall, is recovering from an accident in the orange grove where her family works just to survive. Alexandria, played by a young Romanian actress Cantica Untaru, will go back to work as soon as she recovers. Alexandria’s mother doesn’t speak English so Alexandria has to interpret for the doctors. She uses this to get permission to prolong her stay since she wants to know how the tale Roy is spinning will end.

Roy’s initial motives for telling the story are a scheme to get Alexandria to steal morphine so that he can commit suicide—or go to sleep as he tells her. She does get some morphine, but doesn’t understand the directions and doesn’t get enough. The tale must be spun some more. On another attempt to get the drugs she falls and is seriously injured. Roy continues the tale, but this time beside her bed. The quest to kill the evil governor goes on, but his own personal struggles keep seeping into the story. Roy keeps killing off the people on the quest in the movie, as Alexandria protests. His character, the Black Bandit, is about to drown in a swimming pool but Alexandria begs him to change the plot. You will need to view the film to see how this version ends.

The Fall works as a title on so many levels; Roy injuries himself falling from a horse, Alexandria falls near the end and injuries herself for the second time in a fall, or maybe it is the fall of humanity which seeks to control how life turns out. A former student of mine died this week—in an accidental drowning. It was unplanned and it wasn’t like the movie where we can beg the storyteller to change the ending. I wish all of our stories ended happily. I wish all wars ended with the “good” guys winning, but life is no movie.

Roy asks Alexandria early in the film if she is trying to save his soul, when she gives him some communion wafers she pilfered from the church. She doesn’t understand at this point what he means, but it becomes clear that by the end of the film she must help him want to live: to save his life. To save his life requires him to love again. Roy does have a choice in this instance, but most of us can only choose some things.

While the movies aren’t real life, a story this week on NPR (All Things Considered) reminds us again how the movies work their way into real life. The young star of The Kite Runner has found that it is dangerous to live in his own home since many Afghans feel that the film insulted their country. He no longer attends school and rarely leaves his home. The Kite Runner was previously reviewed on this site and is still worth a viewing. While watching, think about how this film would feel to you if you were part of the country where it was made and how it revealed ethnic tensions that you might want to consider.   

The Fall is totally fiction, a great diversion and a wonderful display of visual interpretation. Enjoy the yarn and make up a few of your own.

Rated-R for violence.