Some films fly under the radar. Such is the case with
The Fall (2006), which has an impressive rating of 7.9 on a scale of ten from 99,000+ users at IMDb. I watched it last night courtesy of Netflix. Set in the 1920's, a blend of fantasy and realism, it is the story of an adorable adolescent girl and a suicidal young man, each hospitalized, recovering from a fall. He bribes her into stealing morphine by telling her a story, leaving her hanging at intervals until she meets his wants. His character seems faulty, underdeveloped. His self pity is annoying. The actor's face was familiar, but I was unable to recall his name - Lee Pace, who was the star of the short lived, imaginative TV series
Pushing Daisies. The little girl is played by Romania's Catinca Untaru, who was nine when the film was released. She is uncannily natural and utterly charming. her performance alone worth the price of admission. Not much is required of Justine Waddell as the femme fatale. After an impressive start to her career wherein she played numerous famous real life and fictional characters on TV and in cinema, she stopped acting, at least on screen, in 2011. She wrote and directed a short in 2013. I wonder if she is raising kids. I would be remiss in not mentioning Colin Watkinson's spectacular cinematography, shot at numerous exotic locations worldwide. I imagine the budget was high, and the flick returned only $3.7 million worldwide. I wonder if it made up a lot of ground through word of mouth in DVD sales and downloads. Tarsem Singh, whose credits are dominated by music videos, directed. He collaborated on the screenplay with three others. I'm not as enthusiastic about the flick as are so many, but it is well worth viewing. It runs just shy of two hours. There is violence, but it's not over the top. Those squeamish about the issue of suicide should probably pass. Here's the enchanting little miss:
The weather was as good as it gets, but business sucked. My thanks to the middle age woman who bought H.G. Wells'
The Time Machine, and to Bill Brown, author of
Words and Guitar: A History of Lou Reed's Music, who purchased John Le Carre's
The Russia House.
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