film fatales #142: the fallout (megan park, 2021)
Saturday, June 04, 2022
I often come to a movie cold, knowing little or nothing about it. The Fallout was one of those. If I'd done any research at all, I wouldn't have been surprised that the first thing we see is a trigger warning. I didn't know what the triggers might be, and then the movie started with scenes of sisters getting ready for school. It felt harmless enough. All of which meant I was surprised, if not triggered, when events unfolded.
The Fallout is about a school tragedy, which unfortunately couldn't be more timely. The approach writer/director Megan Park takes is to examine, not the tragedy itself, but the aftermath ... the fallout, if you will. It's that aftermath that informs the movie, and Park and her actors give us a revealing portrait of young survivors. The Fallout's presentation is a bit muted, like if Euphoria was created by someone who wasn't obsessed with excess. We get lots of closeups of faces, which won't work if you don't have actors with the skills to draw out our empathy. This was the first time Jenna Ortega, Maddie Ziegler, and Niles Fitch have gotten my attention, and they are all actors with what should be bright futures. Ortega in particular has been getting raves about her "breakout" role. All of the young actors feel age-appropriate (the real-life Ortega is only a couple of years older than her character, and she is short enough that she certainly looks like a 16-year-old).
Park's directing debut is confident ... there are no signs of first-timers disease. She tells the story as she wants, gets the performances she wants, creates a believable world of high-schoolers, and even makes the adults seem true-to-life, neither ogres nor saints. (Ortega's parents are played by Julie Bowen and John Ortiz, and Shailene Woodley turns up as her therapist.) Park doesn't reach too far, which just adds to the powerful nature of what we see.
And, to further surprise me, in the credits I learned that the music is done by Finneas!
Here are the first seven minutes:
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