Maisie Williams at The Falling Premiere 2014Florence Pugh at The Falling Premiere 2014
In 1969, Lydia and Abbie are best friends and classmates at an English girls' school. Lydia, the neglected daughter of an agoraphobic mother, is fixated on Abbie and has begun to explore her sexuality. After having sex with Lydia's brother Kenneth in an attempt to abort her pregnancy with another boy, Abbie begins to suffer from fainting spells. She faints and goes into convulsions after a stint in detention with Lydia and subsequently dies. Following Abbie's burial, Lydia begins suffering from fainting spells, and it soon becomes an epidemic, with numerous girls and a young teacher at the school spontaneously passing out for no more than a few seconds. Lydia becomes convinced that the administration must take action, much to the chagrin of the principal.[4]
When an assembly is disrupted by a mass fainting episode, the school is temporarily shut down and all affected students are hospitalised and psychoanalysed. When no cause for the fainting spells is discovered, the school is reopened and Lydia is expelled. That same night, the virginal Lydia has sex with her brother Kenneth, with whom she has developed an incestuous attraction after Abbie's death. Their mother, Eileen, catches them in the act and angrily forces Kenneth out of the house brandishing a pair of scissors before launching into a tirade against her, branding her dangerous and saying she ought to be locked up. Eileen then reveals that Lydia and Kenneth are only half-siblings; Lydia is the product of her rape by a stranger.
Upon learning this, Lydia runs out of the house and Eileen follows her, the first time she has ventured outside the house in over sixteen years. Searching for Lydia, Eileen is overcome with flashbacks of her rape. She eventually locates Lydia, who, in a breakdown over Abbie's death, has climbed to the top of a tree near the school where she and Abbie used to spend time together. Eileen pleads with Lydia to come down, but she laughs, challenging her mother's lack of maternal affection, before losing her footing and falling from the tree into the lake.
Distraught, Eileen ventures into the water, finds Lydia's seemingly drowned body, and cradles her apparently dead daughter, realising that her emotional frigidity has done more harm to her than she knew. Lydia unexpectedly regains consciousness, and the film ends with the two women crying in an embrace.
BFI funded the film £750K.[5] Production began in October 2013.[6] The soundtrack is by Tracey Thorn. Morley asked Thorn to provide the music for the film after editing had begun.[7]
Release
The Falling premiered at the BFI London Film Festival on 11 October 2014.[8] It had a limited release in the United Kingdom, grossing £442,177 with a further £10,051 grossed in New Zealand.[9] US DVD sales amounted to another £6,406.[10]
Reception
Rotten Tomatoes, a review aggregator, reports that 73% of 37 surveyed critics gave the film a positive review; the average rating is 6.8/10.[11] The site’s consensus states, “Well-acted and overall unsettling, The Falling delivers thought-provoking thrills -- and suggests a bright future for writer-director Carol Morley.”[11]
Mark Adams of Screen International wrote, "It is a film that will resonate with some but leave others exasperated, but The Falling is certainly a bold film and one to be admired and appreciated."[12] Guy Lodge of Variety called it "an imperfect but alluring study of psychological contagion that marks an auspicious advance in the field of narrative filmmaking for acclaimed docu maker Carol Morley".[13]
Geoffrey Macnab of The Independent rated it four out of five stars and wrote, "Carol Morley's The Falling is beguiling and disturbing, a beautifully made and very subtle affair that combines melodrama, rites of passage and supernatural elements in an utterly intriguing way."[17]Peter Bradshaw of The Guardian rated it five out of five stars and wrote, "Director Carol Morley has come up with another brilliant and very distinctive feature, about an epidemic of fainting that grips a girls school in the 1960s."[18]
Elise Nakhnikian of Slant Magazine gave a less favourable review, writing that "the film all leads to a melodramatic climax that wraps up the main character's explosive acting out in a too-neat package."[19] David Jenkins of Little White Lies also gave an unfavourable review, writing, "Carol Morley follows up the mesmerising Dreams of a Life with a tedious period drama set in an all-girls school."[20]
Simon Wessely writing in The Lancet Psychiatry noted that the film "beautifully captured" the original 1973 case report of an episode of mass psychogenic illness that was its inspiration.[21]
