This film came to my attention when I was perusing Spike Jonze’s latest films. How is it possible that he and David Fincher where involved in a film and I knew nothing of it. Compounding my interest was the actor who portrayed the injured stuntman, one Lee Pace of Pushing Daisies fame.
Oh, wait, Spike Jonze and David Fincher are only presenting this film. (Whatever the hell that means.) One thing I’m sure that means is that they had nothing to do with the production of this film. Shoot.
Lee Pace’s character Roy tells a grand story of five heroes who vow to kill a man named Odious for one reason or another. Roy’s story is told on an epic scale spanning, the back of the box says, 4 continents as these five men track Odious to his country. The back of the box also informs me that it took four years to craft this film. A fact which leads me to believe they should have spent some of that time on plot/character development.
Roy injects himself and the little girl into the story and will only continue the tale each day if the little girl retrieves medicine for him. Her repeated attempts to follow Roy’s orders quickly show that Roy wants the medicine for more than just pain relief. He is looking to kill himself.
The story Roy tells becomes increasingly dark as Roy’s depression sinks lower, but the relationship between Roy and the girl seems genuine and well constructed, and as the narration slips back to Roy’s hyper color hero tale the construction of character development falls apart.
These brief stints into the imagination of Roy’s tale are scene of great cinematic beauty. I truly believe they shot the film on four different continents, and as the camera angles arc and the focus blurs the line between art and film the eye is presented with a magnificent presentation of the filmmaker’s imagination. But while the scene are saturated eye popping wonders the plot is a dull knife serrating the film’s beauty.
Lee Pace’s skills are truly on display in this film and this is exciting. I feared, while watching Pushing Daisies, that his charm and impish idealism wasn’t true acting and maybe Pace was simply that optimistic. But the juxtaposition of Roy with the pie maker shows that Pace has true range – an exciting proposition for the actor’s future.
Ultimately the tale Pace weaves is the downfall of the entire film as it is not very interesting and often drags. I can’t help but think Tarsem Singh needs to find new writers to work with. His only other film, 2000’s The Cell, was similar to The Fall in that it was beautifully shot but the plot was horrible.
3 out of 10: superb visuals and quality acting are betrayed by the horribly slow and mind numbing plot.
2 comments:
i'm surprised you rated this so low although I guess I would have given it somewhere in the 4-5 range.
there's no doubt that this film looks wonderful but you're right that the script needed some serious help. While that girl was cute as a button, they played the sap angle way too hard and I wished that they could have stayed away from the overtly maudilin ending. For all of Lee's genuine acting talents, crying on his death bed made him seem like a fool. Too overwrought...simply too much. As a simple fable, it's fine but I think that its breathtaking visuals have you believe that something this spectacular looking wouldn't end up being so simplistic.
As for Pushing Daises, I am halfway through the 1st season and am skeptical. It's good enough but again a tad too cutesy- couldn't they tone down the colors and not have that girl constantly dressed like she's fronting Rilo Kiley? Talk about honing in on that key demo!
Ah but I think that is the appeal of Pushing Daisies for most.
I'm speaking for others here, but I think the idea is life is dark and brooding, can't something be perfect and sweet?
Though I agree with your last sentence about the fall perfectly. Something that good looking shouldn't be so simplistic. You hit the nail on the head.
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