Every performer has their own unique start in the business, typically comprised of one or all of the following: the first audition, the first commercial, or the first short film. Most fans, however, start counting their favorite actor’s jobs when they get their first role in a feature film.Florence Pugh’s breakthrough role to many isAri Aster’sMidsommar, but she actually led the way several years earlier. Long before she was starring in massive projects such asChristopher Nolan’sOppenheimer,Denis Villeneuve’sDune: Part Two, or the MCU’s upcomingThunderbolts, the Oscar-nominated actress andGame of Thrones’Maisie Williamsimpressed audiences in 2014’sThe Falling.
Written and directed byCarol Morley, this mystery drama was a first for Pugh in more ways than one.Speaking to BAFTA in 2023,the actress revealed that the film was also her very first audition. “That was a complete fluke,” she said. “No one should ever learn their lesson that way.” According to Pugh, she was selected from a large group of girls that sent in tapes after the production crew spread the news around schools from Oxford to London about the upcoming film. Skeptical at first, as she had a brother in the industry and knew this isn’t how auditions usually work,Pugh eventually sent in her tape. And, lo and behold, she got the part. “I only had one line, and I’d practiced it for months and months and months, and I start the scene,” she recounted, commenting on the first scene she ever shot. “And I completely forgot it, and the take went on for like a minute and a half. And then they said: ‘Okay, shall we go again?'”
The Falling
In the late 1960s at a strict English girls’ school, a student’s sudden unexplained fainting triggers a chain reaction among her peers, leading to a mass psychogenic illness that perplexes the community. The story delves into the psychological and social dynamics of the school, examining themes of friendship, authority, and rebellion.
Florence Pugh Nails Her Part in ‘The Falling’
While this experience was, without a doubt, traumatic for Pugh, it in no way represents her performance inThe Falling. In reality,Pugh completely nailed her part, easily becoming the most memorable actress in the film, despite only being on-screen for about half an hour. Charming, defiant, and magnetic, it’s not hard to understand why her Abigail has the impact that she has on her schoolmates, particularly on the young Lydia, played by Williams. As a matter of fact, Pugh exudes such charisma during her time in front of the cameras that it can even be hard to remember that Williams was the one with all the star power at the time, with all the fame and the glory that came with playingArya Stark inGame of Thrones.
Williams' character is the true protagonist of the film. Ignored by her mother, Eileen (Maxine Peak),Lydia Lamont finds solace in her friendship with the much more popular and sexually active Abigail Mortimer. The two girls have that kind of relationship so often portrayed in media about teenage girls, where the lines that separate friendship from love and desire are as thin as can be. Scenes in which Lydia and Abigail share pieces of gum or put their fingers into each other’s mouths abound throughout the duration of Pugh’s screentime. The moments that show Abigail receiving attention from Lydia’s mother and brother, Kenneth (Joe Cole), drive home the point that it is not clear even to Lydia herself whether she wants to be Abigail or to bewithher.
Things become even more complicated when Abigail falls pregnant. With the film taking place in the 1960s, in England, the two girls plan a homemade abortion, but Abigail chooses to have sex with Kenneth as part of a magick (yes, magick with a “k”) ritual to get rid of the fetus. It is unclear whether the ritual works or not, but Abigail feels sick at school one day.Lydia falls into despair as her friend starts to bleed from her nose, collapses into a seizure, and dies.
The Death of Florence Pugh’s Abigail Kicks Off the Movie
Abigail’s unexpected demise is the beginning of the actual plot ofThe Falling. Following their classmate’s death,the students at the all-girls school Lydia and Abigail attend start to present weird symptoms, fainting out of the blue in a way that looks similar to a spiritual trance. Lydia is the one that starts it all. One day, in the middle of class, she gets up from her seat, does a weird dance with her hands, and collapses to the ground. Other girls follow suit, and it doesn’t take long until even a teacher, Miss Charron (Morfydd Clark), is taken by this weird curse.
It is unclear to the school why this is happening, and the belated responses are always heartless and ineffective: they separate Lydia from the other girls, expel her, take the students to doctors quick to diagnose them with mass hysteria. No one wants to deal with the real impact that Abigail’s death has had on them. And, indeed, Abigail represented a lot of things to her classmates. With her too short skirts and her constant tardiness,she represented defiance and sexual liberation. With her knowledge of poetry, she was beauty incarnate. With her pregnancy, she represented life as afallen woman. For Lydia, she was the love she never received at home.
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All of these factors complicate the girls' relationship with Abigail.They point to the existence of a piece of Abbie inside each and every one of them.They faint because that’s how Abigail died, and they all want to be like her, but they alreadyarelike her to some extent. It is also significant that Abigail, early in the film, describes having an orgasm as a “little death,” a fainting-like sensation. Passing out, thus, is also an indicator of sexual maturity for the girls inThe Falling;they have fallen not just because they are literally tumbling to the floor, but also because that’s how they are now perceived by society due to their sexual impulses.
Eventually,Lydia confesses that she made the whole thing up. However, this does not change the reality of thewidespread disease. For starters, the other girls claim that they have never faked anything. And then there’s the fact that Lydia still craves attention because of Abigail’s death, a craving that will eventually lead her to have sex with her own brother as a way of both becoming Abigail and being with her, even if just for a short while.
Florence Pugh’s Abigail Is ‘The Falling’s Anchor
All of this means thatPugh’s Abigail is at the center ofThe Falling. The whole story revolves around her, at least for the most part, and Pugh demonstrates incredible maturity in her first role to make herself as unforgettable as her character is supposed to be. We feel her presence constantly, even when Carol Morley somehow forgets to shove an image of her playing in the orchestra or moaning in bed in her fast-paced montages. However, thoughThe Fallingis, without a doubt, Abigail’s movie, it wasn’t supposed to be. And that’s where everything falls apart.
For anyone with experience with this “school girls gone feral” kind of cinema,The Fallingcan’t help but feel extremely derivative. The first part, centered around Abigail and Lydia’s friendship, smells a lot like the first half ofPeter Jackson’sHeavenly Creatures. Meanwhile, the segment with all the fainting more than evokesPeter Weir’s 1975 classic about the tension between European notions of society and the great outdoors,Picnic at Hanging Rock. ThenThe Fallingoffers us a third part, a part that doesn’t resemble anything at all and also isn’t exactly very good or cohesive.
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Centered around the character of Lydia, the end of the movie feels entirely like its own thing, for better or for worse. It is the most original part of the film, but it is also completely disconnected from the rest. In it, still reeling from Abigail’s death, Lydia seduces her brother and finds out that she is the product of a rape. This explains why her mother never did pay much attention to her, but considering that this was never a core concern of the film, it’s hard to care. Out of the blue,a film about the impact of a girl’s death on her schoolmates becomes a drama about another girl’s origin.
It’s no stretch, then, to say thatFlorence Pugh carriesThe Fallingon her back. Without her, either literally or as a presence that can be felt much like one feels the presence of a ghost, the movie loses its track. It becomes something odd, that doesn’t quite work as well as it does in the first two thirds.Pugh’s character, as well asher strong performance, are key to makingThe Fallingtick. When they disappear, the movie fumbles to tell its story. You know, kind of like Pugh fumbled to deliver that line on her first day of shooting.
The Fallingis available to watch on Prime Video in the U.S.
