Falling

Viggo Mortensen’s directorial debut, Falling details the complicated relationship between an abusive father (Lance Henriksen’s Willis) and his now-adult son (Mortensen’s John). It’s clear immediately that Mortensen has managed to craft a well-made, exceedingly well acted piece of work, and it’s clear, certainly, that the first-time filmmaker has elicited seriously impressive performances from himself and his various cast members – with, especially, Henriksen’s commanding turn mesmerizing and hypnotic even when the picture itself isn’t. There’s little doubt, then, that Falling‘s undoing is a lamentably generic narrative that grows less and less compelling as time progresses, as Mortensen, working from his own screenplay, delivers a repetitive midsection that offers exceedingly little in terms of surprises or attention-grabbing elements – with the bulk of the picture essentially following a pattern wherein Willis says or does something awful and John exasperatingly attempts to ignore it. It gets to a point, perhaps inevitably, where one can’t help but wonder why John doesn’t just cut ties with the hateful old man, and it’s clear, certainly, that the third act’s heated confrontation is hardly able to pack the cathartic punch that Mortensen has obviously intended – which ultimately confirms Falling‘s place as a well-intentioned yet mostly ineffective first feature from an otherwise talented performer.

** out of ****