Without ruining the movie for you, we can say that the majority of The Fall revolves around the interaction between a little girl and a man. The girl is painted as coming from an immigrant family and is impossibly cute. Her speech patterns may have been coached or scripted, but they seem completely natural and unrehearsed. The emotions behind her character are innocence, discovery, and imagination. The man she discovers in the hospital where she is recuperating from a broken arm also has a strong imagination. Behind his imagination, we also find sorrow and mystery. It is appropriate that the story he begins to weave for the girl is colored by similar emotions. Much like a grown-up fairy tale such as The Princess Bride, the story is the film... The viewer is always clear on where the storytelling and real life leave off, but there are gradually more threads from the girl's life that bleed into the story. As we see the girl begin to shape the story, we also learn how the man's real life has influenced his choice of themes, characters, and the plot.
The Fall runs perilously close to feeling passe about halfway through, as we wonder whether the stock-in-trade happy ending will come for all the characters in both the story and in real life. A twist in the film takes things in an interesting direction that may be unsatisfying for viewers that came expecting another Princess Bride or comedic (in the Greek sense) Gilliam joint. The humanity underneath the dreaming takes center stage, leading the viewer to wonder if the little girl's innocence will be shattered. You'll have to pick up a copy of The Fall to find out where the story goes. Director Tarsem Singh (The Cell) has crafted a beautiful film that features miles of eye-candy and imagination, but doesn't end up being terribly controversial or novel. Casual film-goers will likely be turned off by having to read between the lines, but anyone with a taste for something different will find it here. Gilliam is still the master of this style, but like most things in art, there's always room for different interpretations.
