Fallen (2006) Online

"People leave a vacancy when they die" and "What are you doing here? What are we all doing here?" (at that instant, quite a rhetorical question: getting drunk and on each other's nerves, besides the trails of memories long gone - and not so long).

Aged 31 to 34, five women who went to school and graduated there together meet at a funeral - first cautiously discovering the others' biographies, later reliving some of the drama of the high school years in fast forward (there's even a wedding, and not only bride and groom, also known from school days, get to cuddle).

The existentialist undertones are enhanced by the black garments from the funeral, they match the melancholic mood that probably pertains to any and all class reunions; as the evening progresses, not only the masks and the mascara come off ...

I might be heavily biased (this is my age group, and the hopeless rural community is not only comparable but also geographically close to the small town I went to school at; as of yet I've also managed to avoid reunions, so now I have some more fuel for nightmares), but I liked the film a lot. I found the funeral a bit of a weak starter, and the zoom-ins on the digital images appeared a bit crude, but the effect (getting the viewer to think about the mobile snapshot) worked sufficiently well.

Politrivia: the one thing that annoyed me (like in the past days, I'm currently on a kind of movie streak) were the "anti-piracy" spots among the other brainless ads before the movie - I obviously did buy my ticket, and if I know that I'm going to be insulted for viewing a movie in the cinema this is not a particularly good incentive to make me a return customer ...

Michael is dead. So is Austro rap idol Falco. Falco leaves behind millions of grieving fans. In Michaels case, it comes down to four ex-girlfriends in various degrees of rage and mourning. As Nina, Brigitte, Carmen, and Nicole meet at Michael's funeral, they find they all have some unfinished business with the dead man or, more precisely, with each other. It's a promising setup, but it's going nowhere. There's simply too much nostalgia and too little character development. Also, I was confused by the fact that Barbara Albert mixes footage of varying quality and provenance (color, b/w, video) seemingly at random. So despite fine performances, especially by acclaimed theater actress Birgit Minichmayr and small-screen regular Nina Proll, I walked away with mixed feelings. If you like the idea of a thirty-something all-girl ensemble cast, check out "Schöne Frauen" instead, a much better movie with the added charm of QueenBee's wonderful soundtrack. For girls with a criminal record, rent "Bandits", and if you like them young, try Jan Peter's "Over the rainbow". If the girls should also be witches and include Sandra Bullock, I suggest "Practical Magic" or "Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood". If you don't know what you like, you might even consider "Boys on the Side". Is this a full-service comment or what?

Quality movie with an interesting set of characters and twists. My problem with the movie is the with the style. Make up your mind. Are you a 50's style murder mystery where you feel compelled to provide voice overs for the slow witted in the audience?, or are you a new wave thriller where we decide whether or not and who the evil guys are. Great premise for a movie but way too switchy in format for me. As soon as I got interested the style changed to something new that I had to readjust to. Actually watched this movie twice, three years apart. My opinion changed only slightly towards a more positive view. I suspect this was due to what I now knew to expect after working through my problems the first time.

This movie is trying to be the Big Chill, but it falls short and becomes boring because we don't connect with the characters. It's too bad because a script re-write would have taken care of all of these issues. Let's compare the two and see why Fallen fails.

1. The Big Chill succeeds in connecting with the audience because we find out very quickly that the group were all flower children who for the most part grew up and wondered what happened to their idealism.

In contrast, Fallen hints that the protagonists were protesting something in their youth but they don't remember what it's about.

2. The Big Chill spent most of the time having the characters reminisce about what they stood for and what their lives are like now and how they feel about it.

Fallen shows us the characters through a few throwaway lines and side comments in the conversations, and spends a lot longer on the girls dancing awkwardly or drinking. For example Alex answers her phone 2 or 3 times, and from the description on the DVD box I think we're supposed to infer that she's a busy business lady. But we don't know who she's talking to or why, and it doesn't seem to take her out of the moment. One phone call is about going to a party and one is about getting groceries or something. If they had her constantly distracted and talking to a co-worker about a report or something, it would have been more powerful when she busts loose on the dance floor and takes her shirt off and regrets it.

3. The Big Chill knows it's basically a play, and doesn't pollute the dialogue with weird artsy shots Fallen has random pictures thrown in before scenes, but they're not flashbacks, they're flash forwards with awkward church folk songs overlaid.

4. The big chill has the characters acting like normal people would in their situation.

Fallen has the show up in some field with a wedding going on the groom at a wedding hitting on Nina the preggo that you find out (sort of) is his ex. Then the bride shows up, get's mad at Nina, and 10 seconds later decides to go with her and the rest of the group to a bar. Hunh? What bride would do that?

Then the groom shows up at the bar, announces "There you are" to the bride, and all is better.

At another point the blonde one walks out of the bar, then is in the dark, scared, then walks up to the eyebrowless one, shakes her and walks off. We find out after this that she's on drugs, but we didn't see her take any, so it just looks weird.

Later on the blonde one's daughter goes missing, so the group sets off to find her. They walk up a random hill and it's windy so they stand in the wind in what I think was supposed to represent freedom... but there's no music so it just looks awkward. Also they haven't found the daughter yet. It makes no sense. They should have had this before they noticed the daughter was missing or after they found her.

It's really too bad because a movie like this had potential. It's easy to blame the acting in a situation like this, but really it was the script that was at issue. A re-write would have done wonders.

One way to judge if a movie is worth the time viewing is to examine it in terms of a consistent index which weighs the variables. On a scale of 1 to 10, we find the following. The acting rates a 6 simply because it is too uneven, and, at best, is television quality. The sets are nothing more than ordinary scenes, which, in some cases, appear to be things in the camera's view, meriting a 4. The dialog is actually quite good (an 8), and it is appropriate to the ordinariness of the characters. The plot seems disconnected (a 4), and it is difficult to get a good story from an episodic plot. The characters are very ordinary, causing one critic to see the film as a combination of THE BIG CHILL and SEX IN THE CITY. With this type of endorsement, it is difficult to give the characters more than a 6. The continuity in the film causes ups and downs from ordinary partying to philosophical proclamations which appear to have no relation (3 for continuity). Artistry, the final variable seems generally absent, probably because it is difficult to overcome the ordinary facets of the film, thereby meriting no more than a 3. In the final analysis, it is the very ordinary elements which make this an ordinary film. It is indeed difficult to make a silk purse from a sow's ear. Left Elbow Average: just below 5.