The Falling (Carol Morley, 2014)
This was my second viewing of this film. Right after I watched it for the first time, I read several reviews of it and they were mostly favorable, but - and this really puzzled me - none of them acknowledge the queer element to the relationship between Lydia and Abbie. A couple writers even went out of their way to assert that there was definitely nothing romantic between them. The common view seems to be that Lydia is just platonically fixated on her confident, sexually adventurous friend. Which is silly. I'm certainly not trying to force any particular subtext or theme on this work of art, but there is no way that there is not a romantic element to Lydia and Abbie’s relationship! Even though that isn't the whole deal between them by a long shot. But Lydia doesn’t want to be Abbie. She just wants Abbie.
From the way that they speak to each other, I don't think that they have a sexual relationship and I don't know that they are even at a point of explicitly naming what is between them. I know that girls are generally more comfortable being physically affection with one another than boys, so I'm not saying that their being so cuddly with each other must "mean" anything more than an expression of their friendship. But Lydia is jealous and sexually possessive of Abbie. And the way they hold hands and lie together, the way they talk about their relationship, and just the way they physically are when they are in the same place puts them in a space somewhere between two girls who are close friends and two young women who are something else, too. Lydia is very serious and reserved and Abbie is more free and impulsive. But Abbie seems to care more than she lets on and despite doing things that inflame Lydia’s jealousy. It would be wrong to say that whatever Lydia is feeling is unrequited. It's just not requited in as obvious or monogamous a way.
There is a lot going on in this film, and I don’t know if it’s completely successful in saying everything it has to say. I find the last 15 minutes a little upsetting and I'm especially not sure if I think the ending lands. But I love this movie, and I love it enough to feel like the things that feel incongruous or wrong to me right now might come to make more sense as I continue to think about it (and with another viewing).
SPOILER ALERT
How about all of that falling? Abbie faints and dies - which, by the way, is horrifying. It’s a punch in the gut to lose one of our story’s heroes 30 minutes into the film, and it really caught me off-guard and upset me the first time I saw it. Gosh. So Abbie falls and is gone, and then all the other girls start fainting all the time. There's ambiguity over whether or not some medical epidemic has struck the girls, whether they are experiencing some kind of psychosomatic sympathy for their friend that feels real to them but has no physical basis, or whether they are just knowingly faking it. If they are knowingly faking it, is it in childish (by which I mean pure-hearted) solidarity or is it less noble attention-seeking behavior? Some of the girls faint in a pretty believable way and some of them are pretty theatrical about it, from the beginning and the whole time it's happening. And then of course Lydia admits she was always only faking it.
What really struck me on the second viewing is that this part of the story is simply a portrait of the reality of life for teenage girls. All of the girls are mourning a shocking death. It's shocking to lose someone in your small peer-group at that age. But against the backdrop of a private school in 1960s England, they aren't really given time or space to grieve as children. They're forced to keep putting on their long skirts and pretend that life is going on like normal. So when the opportunity arises (prompted by the socially non-compliant best friend of their dead friend) to act out (and I guess I mean that both in terms of theater acting and misbehaving) in imitation of and tribute to Abbie, they almost all take it.
They should be allowed to STOP and process what just happened, but they aren't. So they find their own way to stop and mourn and let the adults know that they are in pain and are confused and that they (the girls) are connected to one another. And I really like that we are shown that Lydia and some of the other girls are faking it while some of the girls maintain that it is real. This part of the film does such a great job of illustrating the importance of taking the feelings of children seriously, even if the feelings are not about things that you think are serious. And the importance of recognizing that sometimes young people don't have the vocabulary to articulate what's wrong. Whatever is going on with each girl individually, they all double down when the adults refuse to believe that what they are experiencing is real. Further, I love this portrait of solidarity. They all rally together rather than ostracizing Lydia or conforming to the demands of their teachers out of fear of punishment. Their instinct is to draw to one another. I love this beautiful story of girls being together with each other.
I don't really know what the fuck is up with Lydia's family and their relationships with one another. The mom is the only character who feels like a caricature, and I'm not sure how to rectify her with the rest of the film. The reveal that Lydia was conceived when the mom was raped and the mom resents her for resembling her rapist is...a lot. And the consummated sibling incest is even more a lot. Perhaps Lydia is drawn to her brother because her brother had sex with Abbie right before she died and that feels like a way for her to be close to Abbie. She is also just in a state of nihilistic despair and not thinking or acting clearly. Maybe it is appropriate to do the Midsommar thing and view this part of the film as being like a fairy tale. It certainly is horrifying if taken literally. And the final scene by the river, I’m realizing right now that this whole last act has big echoes of the last act of Bergman’s Through a Glass Darkly. And like “Papa spoke to me” in that film, this moment between Lydia and her mom under the tree feels like it doesn’t quite hit the way the author wants it to.
I guess there are three stories: Lydia and Abbie's complex relationship, the epidemic of fainting among the girls after Abbie dies, and Lydia's damaged relationship with her mother and brother. The first two stories fit together very well. The third one doesn't fit very well. Maybe they don't have all fit together to still work as a film. And maybe they'll fit together better when I watch it again. Or maybe Carol Morley just tried to put too many things in this film and fucked up her third act.
A lot of this film is perfect, though. The music in general is good, but the scene where the girls’ alternative orchestra is playing gives me chills. That piece of music and the footage of them playing and singing it is beautiful and an unexpected step into a dream. (That little wooden xylophone that Lydia plays is a delight when heard through headphones.) Obviously Florence Pugh is great in this, and it was such a treat rewatching this having seen her work in Midsommar and Little Women. But Maisie Williams is the real revelation in this film. I watched all of Game of Thrones and the main thing I took away from that series is that the true stars on there were Peter Dinklage and Maisie Williams. Williams, as a person, has such intelligence and intensity, and she plays this role in a way that I don’t think any other actor could.
Anyway, The Falling is a beautiful and puzzling film. Here’s to the next viewing.
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