'Before The Fall' manages to pack a handfl of genuinely beautiful scenes into its 1 hr 32 min running time. It also manages to fill the rest of the scenes with a lot of uninspired writing, clumsy directing, and some regretably bad acting.
Before I continue, I would like to single out three of the lead actors as having been quite good.
Chase Connor as the deeply troubled and brooding Darcy is very good. There is something about this character (in keeping with the original novel) that demands he be as handsome as he is conflicted, and Mr Conner does not disappoint. He is (as another reviewer has rightly noted) "breathtaking" to look at. While he does get in a fair bit of brooding, it is not the only note that he strikes. We see him smile (a couple times) with his new-found friend Bingley (played equally well by the devastatingly handsome Jason Mac), we see him pensive and in pain, seemingly on the verge of tears. We see him struggle and want to open up, grasping at hope. He makes us see it, this hope, like a distant glimmer that he spies but cannot reach. He is a man with many demons, and Conner captures it well.
Ethan Sharrett contributes a well-balanced performance on the whole. There are some beautiful moments when he ceases to "act" and just inhabits the character of Bennett so completely that we are transported, we are there with him, in his pain and his embarassment and his regret. But at other times, perhaps due to the sodden script or the uneven directing, his acting seems to flounder, he loses both likeability and believability.
This brings us to the script: it is in bad need of a re-write. I understand that Mr Geisling (who wrote the script and directed the film) was trying to break new ground with this effort, but I think it is clear that the script suffers from his narrow perspective.
We are not supposed to despise any of the character's from Jane Austen's novel, so I am confused about why Mr Geisling would choose to make Bennett so thoroughly unlikeable through much of the film. Yes, he is supposed to be classist and snobby (Geisling switches the character's roles, making Darcy from the working class and Bennett from the upper class) and flawed and short-sighted. But we are always supposed to retain the idea that his superior attitude is not his true self, that he is mostly a victim of his upbringing. Once he is faced with seeing his ugly self in the proverbial mirror, he will not like what he sees and he'll quietly set about changing. Mr Bennett's evolution comes about too quickly for me right at the end of the film.
Bennett's gay friends are downright insufferable with their catty obsession with men that they want to pursue.
Cathy (Darcy's girlfriend) is a ... well, she's so many bad words that I cannot write them here. Suffice it to say that the first rhymes with "hunt" and the second with "ditch". How or why Darcy is with her is truly a mystery. Her bigotry and vitriol seem overdone. There is no nuance in her character, either in the script or in the actor's portrayal.
Yes, such terrible people exist in the world, but such an unrelenting lack of sympathetic qualities sours a film.
I recently watched the Irish film 'The Stag' (also titled 'The Bachelor Weekend') which featured the character known as The Machine. He is the slightly psychopathic and very inappropriate soon-to-be brother-in-law of the groom, and he has managed to wedge himself into a bachelor weekend (an ersatz stag experience) much to the chagrin of the groom, the best man, and their three mates. But as initially brash, uncouth, and yes, even slightly psycho as he is, he actually turns out to be a good listener and a staunch ally and teaches these men a few lessons about what it means to be a loyal friend.
Before I continue, I would like to single out three of the lead actors as having been quite good.
Chase Connor as the deeply troubled and brooding Darcy is very good. There is something about this character (in keeping with the original novel) that demands he be as handsome as he is conflicted, and Mr Conner does not disappoint. He is (as another reviewer has rightly noted) "breathtaking" to look at. While he does get in a fair bit of brooding, it is not the only note that he strikes. We see him smile (a couple times) with his new-found friend Bingley (played equally well by the devastatingly handsome Jason Mac), we see him pensive and in pain, seemingly on the verge of tears. We see him struggle and want to open up, grasping at hope. He makes us see it, this hope, like a distant glimmer that he spies but cannot reach. He is a man with many demons, and Conner captures it well.
Ethan Sharrett contributes a well-balanced performance on the whole. There are some beautiful moments when he ceases to "act" and just inhabits the character of Bennett so completely that we are transported, we are there with him, in his pain and his embarassment and his regret. But at other times, perhaps due to the sodden script or the uneven directing, his acting seems to flounder, he loses both likeability and believability.
This brings us to the script: it is in bad need of a re-write. I understand that Mr Geisling (who wrote the script and directed the film) was trying to break new ground with this effort, but I think it is clear that the script suffers from his narrow perspective.
We are not supposed to despise any of the character's from Jane Austen's novel, so I am confused about why Mr Geisling would choose to make Bennett so thoroughly unlikeable through much of the film. Yes, he is supposed to be classist and snobby (Geisling switches the character's roles, making Darcy from the working class and Bennett from the upper class) and flawed and short-sighted. But we are always supposed to retain the idea that his superior attitude is not his true self, that he is mostly a victim of his upbringing. Once he is faced with seeing his ugly self in the proverbial mirror, he will not like what he sees and he'll quietly set about changing. Mr Bennett's evolution comes about too quickly for me right at the end of the film.
Bennett's gay friends are downright insufferable with their catty obsession with men that they want to pursue.
Cathy (Darcy's girlfriend) is a ... well, she's so many bad words that I cannot write them here. Suffice it to say that the first rhymes with "hunt" and the second with "ditch". How or why Darcy is with her is truly a mystery. Her bigotry and vitriol seem overdone. There is no nuance in her character, either in the script or in the actor's portrayal.
Yes, such terrible people exist in the world, but such an unrelenting lack of sympathetic qualities sours a film.
I recently watched the Irish film 'The Stag' (also titled 'The Bachelor Weekend') which featured the character known as The Machine. He is the slightly psychopathic and very inappropriate soon-to-be brother-in-law of the groom, and he has managed to wedge himself into a bachelor weekend (an ersatz stag experience) much to the chagrin of the groom, the best man, and their three mates. But as initially brash, uncouth, and yes, even slightly psycho as he is, he actually turns out to be a good listener and a staunch ally and teaches these men a few lessons about what it means to be a loyal friend.