Willis‘ ambivalent relationship with his son John is clear from the first scene. Willis is still a young man (played by Sverrir Gudnason) and his wife Gwen (Hannah Gross) has just handed smelly baby John to him while she gets fresh diapers. Willis holds the child awkwardky and tells him “my little stinker. I‘m sorry I put you into this world only to die.“ The baby, calm at first, starts screaming. Willis‘ inability to express emotions correctly stays with him all of his life. In flashbacks, Viggo Mortensen, who is directing here for the first time and plays adult John, shows how Willis‘ emotional handicap destroys his family over the years and how his first and second wives and his two kids are estranged from him. Without excusing Willis‘ behavior, the mechanisms of masculinity that trip him up and make him increasingly bitter are also on display. In the present-day, Willis (Lance Henriksen) is an old man showing the first signs of dementia. Since he can‘t stay alone in his farm in upstate New York anymore, John takes him to California where he lives with his partner Eric and his daugher Monica. Willis thanks him with a reluctance that‘s hard to take. Bitter tirades and obscenities alternate with conversations that are actually declarations of war. “Did the air force know you were fag?“ John tries not to engage with the provocations, not much about Willis‘ behavior changes. FALLING isn‘t a story where a bitter old man suddenly develops a heart of gold, but rather one in which people don‘t change, yet still try to hold on to each other.

Hendrike Bake

Translation: Elinor Lewy