The Fallout, on HBO Max (Jenna Ortega, Julie Bowen)

[JV Joined: Dec 31st, 2019 Topics: 9 Posts: 5264 View Predictions]

#1204804212

I decided to create this thread because I want to express my feelings about the movie and I don’t want to spoil it for anyone as this is a movie that hits deeper if you don’t know anything about it before watching.

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[kat_ebbs Joined: Jun 10th, 2021 Topics: 29 Posts: 8398 View Predictions]

#1204804214

Ortega is great in this.

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[JV Joined: Dec 31st, 2019 Topics: 9 Posts: 5264 View Predictions]

#1204804265

First of all, I just wanted to point out how great Jenna Ortega is in this movie. She takes all the dramatic moments really well without making obvious choices and has great comedic timing. I can understand how she’s slowly having a Zendaya-like surge (Jane the Virgin, Disney show, You, The Babysitter: Killer Queen, Scream 5 and The Adams Family reboot) and I can see her having her own Euphoria in the future.

I think the movie had lots of good moments, some extremely well directed sequences like the first shooting scene at the school. An unbelievably well done transition of tone. Really claustrophobic, raw nd agonizing portrayal of a horrid situation. I had no idea what the movie was about and thought I was going to watch some nice dumb teen movie and got sucker punched.

However, after this I felt that it kinda lost its steam. The director struggled with what she did so well at the start: Balancing dramatic and comedic situations, resulting in a very bothering tone inconsistency. You can’t direct a scene like the one you first see in the movie and then proceed to exploit MUSIC CUES over and over in scenes where the main character gets stoned. Look at the subject matter you’re dealing with. Repetition is also a problem here as some situations and dialogues end up showing up again where they weren’t supposed to. It’s a 91 minutes film.

That said, I love how Megan Park wrote all the relationships. Friend and Friend, Mom and Daughter, Mom and Father, Sister and Sister. They were all genuine and passionate. I also really like how realistic trauma is portrayed without token explanations of how it is created (although there’s a lot of exposition of feelings through dialogue, which isn’t good). There’s also a weird storyline involving activism that felt entirely disconected from the rest of the movie, as if the director was worried that she wasn’t being sympathetic enough and needed to make sure everybody understood what she’s doing. I get why she added it, but I think the movie didn’t need it.

The ending goes back to the tone of the beginning of the movie, but again: It felt too obvious. I’m probably being too harsh, but it’s how I feel. I certainly don’t agree with the Metacritic score.

PS: Having Shailene Woodley play a therapist is a sucker puncher too. In 2014, Woodley would probably play the teenager as everybody was talking about her turn in The Fault in Our Stars at the time so yeah… Old.

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[CuriousHedgehog Joined: Mar 15th, 2018 Topics: 3 Posts: 648 View Predictions]

#1204806125

I saw this back at SXSW last year (and admittedly haven’t had time to see it since), but it’s one of my favourite movies that I watched last year. I think it captures the Gen Z experience really well and the tone worked for me, I personally though the mix of humour and emotional scenes worked for me. The first 15 minutes with the shooting is one of my favourite scenes of last year, and Megan Park managed to create a spiralling claustrophobic feeling film unraveling from that.

I definitely liked the discussions on trauma and grief and healing, especially after a tragedy like they experienced. It discusses the effect of school shootings without being incredibly in your face about it, more letting the audience watch the effect that it had on these kids. I definitely think there’s moments where the film lulls, but I think Megan most excelled at creating the character dynamics.

I personally liked the ending of the film, it kind of served as a reminder that it’s just a constant cycle, that it’s a never ending tragedy that never should be that way. As well, I thought the activism storyline worked, though agreed it could’ve been integrated into the plot more. To me, that seems it was inspired by shootings that have occurred in the past couple years (I feel like this one was mildly inspired by Parkland), and showing the different ways in which people take their grief and their anger.

Lastly, the performances are top notch in this. Jenna Ortega really is going to be the next big thing in Hollywood, and Maddie Ziegler is forgiven for Music (though it wasn’t her fault since was like 14 when she filmed it). Both were really solid, their character dynamics were excellent, and I look forward to seeing what Megan does next.

Definitely not perfect, but I thought it was quite well done.

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