Falling

I’ve seen the words “gripping”, “thrilling” and “breakthrough” used in describing this movie… all of which I find quite amusing because the movie was none of those.

Falling tells the story of a blissfully married couple who are thrown into a whirlwind when the husband, Imoh, is involved in a car accident that leaves him comatose. His wife, Muna, is advised by everyone to pull the plug on him and move on with her life. She is shown the sad statistics and faced with the realities of financing a ventilator assited life but through it all, she decides to keep her husband alive.

In the early parts of the movie when we see this headstrong and strong willed Muna who is 100% driven to keep her husband alive, it is all very gallant and entirely commendable. However, the real dilemma only arises when humanity seeps into the storyline (aka when ish starts to get real). Muna eventually runs out of funds, loses her job and has to find other ways to finance her husband’s treatment and this is when the real drama begins.

Muna eventually meets a neuro doctor, Yemi, who offers to take her husband into his hospital for 6 months. Yemi clearly has other motivations as well as he doesn’t hide the fact that he might have feelings for her, and so the story proceeds.

The story in and of itself is fascinating. The idea behind it is thrilling. However, the enactment of it all was, for lack of a better word, basic. The storyline happened but the viewer doesn’t really ever get wrapped up in it.

The leads, from Adesua Etomi to Oyekunle Remmy and Blossom Chukwujekwu, do a decent enough job presenting the characters. Adesua does her best work in this movie in the initial scenes right after her character’s husband gets in the accident. At that point we see her a bit more immersed than she is later. Later in the movie we get the “same old” Adesua, but at that point she was more. Blossom does show a bit of vulnerability later in the movie as well, it would have been amazing if that emotional angle was explored a bit more in the storyline as opposed to the cameo that it got. Kunle Remmy does a decent enough job bringing his character to life but doesn’t really give anything to remember him with.

It is difficult to say why “Falling” never transcends the level of an ok movie to one that is felt by the viewers. Is it that the actors were a bit laissez-faire and didn’t rip apart on screen? Or was it that the script and/or direction did not give them an opportunity to?

Falling is a nice little story but it is not a great touching story. It is worth every minute of the watch, but to watch it a second time is asking for too much. By the end of the movie, some strings are still left untied because yes they get back together and supposedly live happily ever after but how do they sort out the dynamics of their new real life?