The Falling World

Lark (Ayumi Patterson) is a quiet kind of person, observant, meditative. She’s never really pushed herself in life, beyond studying hard, so there is surprise when she falls in with the most popular older students in her postgraduate law school and is invited to go on a trip with them. Staying in a converted pilgrim-era chapel of the sort that people in the US think of as really old, she herself becomes a novelty because of her relative youth, but finds herself drifting along, observing, as the others connect and quarrel and do the sorts of things protagonists do. Awkwardly distanced as she is, and denied explanations of the things which initially seem important, she might ultimately end up understanding more about the dynamics of the group than its members do.

Hadley (Isabelle Chester) is the group’s queen bee, but she’s uncomfortable when, on arrival, she finds out that her sister Margot (Lucy Walters) is also staying there. Margot is a writer; Lark has not only read her work but has clearly cultivated precisely the idea of what it is to be a writer that Lark projects, drifting around in a silk negligee and agonising over scant notes in the middle of the night. Margot isn’t sticking around, but she gives Lark just enough hints about odd events associated with the chapel to prime her curiosity. In particular, there is the story of a young woman who stayed there with the group in previous years and then just disappeared. There’s no apparent resolution to the story but Lark, catching snippets of conversation over the course of the weekend, is convinced that others in the group know something about what happened. An awkward balance is struck between people simply ignoring her questions because they’re treating her like a pet, and the sense that if she gets too close to finding out what happened, she could be in danger.

Maeve (Kaley Ronayne) accuses of Lark of behaving like Tom Ripley. It is perhaps a dig at her for socialising above her station, but what Maeve asserts directly is that she’s taking on the personalities of those around her. In fact, everybody seems to be projecting something different onto Lark. She’s adopted, she’s teetotal, she’s perceived as blank and other; we get to know her by sticking close to her, watching her deflect or absorb different slights, until, ultimately, it becomes apparent that someone else has seen her that way too, and the film’s real mystery – how she came to be included – is solved.

It’s slow going. A lot of promises are made along the way which are not fulfilled, and emotional investments are made which never come to make much sense. Nevertheless, it’s an interesting attempt at a different kind of filmmaking, and there’s enough substance to it for it to leave one wondering. The acting is good all round, and carefully balanced, with nobody attempting to steal the limelight from anyone else (unlike the characters). Director Jaclyn Bethany oscillates between the poetic and the mundane, denting viewers the luxury of romanticising either the curious disappearance or Lark’s own situation, and yet the locations hints at something of the Gothic. A young heroine, not yet a person of importance, forging a connection with a powerful figure whom most would have thought she could mean nothing to, making an impression because of her intelligence and determination and, in the end, her understanding of the game.