The “fall” in Find me falling (now on Netflix) refers to falling in love, of course. But it has a double meaning, as it also refers to falling off a cliff, on purpose. Harry Connick Jr. headlines this very bad idea, playing a lonely rock star who’s trying to find some peace and quiet — and maybe an old flame, too — but gets dragged into a subplot where he tries to stop people from ending it all. So if you’re craving a chill rom-com about people killing themselves, this movie is for you!
FIND ME FALLINGSTREAM IT OR SKIP IT?
The essence: John Allman (Connick) just bought this adorable little house in Cyprus, where he’s apparently going to retire to solitude. He’s a singer-songwriter who had a huge hit, “Girl on the Beach,” and now he’s on the other side of notoriety, where everyone you meet says, I know you, you used to be famous! Just before they say they love that song, he looks out the window of his cliffside chalet and sees a man and instantly assumes the guy is there to find the famous John Allman. “Get off my property!” John yells. “I ain’t selling you my story!” And then the guy throws himself to his death against the rocks and raging waters below. Hard lesson learned: it’s not all about you, bro.
But hey, at least the fact that someone commits suicide allows John to meet some of the islanders, right? Local policeman Manoli (Tony Demetriou) arrives to investigate the scene and informs John that this is a “suicide hot spot.” wonder What a good price he got for that, eh! Ho ho, what bad luck, how funny! John decides to build a fence to keep people away from the edge of the cliff, but he’s a terrible carpenter and, besides, he’s too drunk to hammer a nail straight and he falls and he falls too and passes out and wakes up the next morning when Melina (Ali Fumiko Whitney) arrives to deliver his groceries. She’s a cheerful girl who sings at the local nightclub and is calm enough not to go crazy in the presence of a famous rock star. They smoke a cigarette together and maybe John has a friend now?
That night, Manoli takes John out to the club for drinks, dinner, and to hear Melina sing. Manoli introduces John to some of the locals, and all the background noise drops away and the movie soundtrack swells as he looks into the eyes of Sia (Agni Scott), who stares back at him, wide and tearful, and then follows him home and sleeps with him. They lie in bed and laugh and John pretends he can’t pronounce her full name, Athanasia, calling her Euthanasia. What a thematically appropriate joke for a movie that uses the horrific suicidal impulses of others as a means to get a character to overcome their selfish psychological myopia! Anyway, could Sia be the “beach girl” girl? Hmm. It sure seems like his dismissive joke about the girl being “just a line in a song” was a load of nonsense. Well, what now? Are there any other plot twists we’ll see 100 Miles Away? Probably! How about exploring more unfortunate metaphors about falling in love? Of course!
What movies will it remind you of? Find me falling Combines ethnic romantic comedy My Big Fat Greek Wedding, rock star saga A star has been born and the drama of suicide The sea of trees to create an incredibly unholy mixture.
Performance worth watching: Relative newcomer Whitney shows some spark (and a nice singing voice) in a film that follows the formula of a conventional romantic comedy, and perhaps doesn’t deserve it. Someone cast her in a better project, please.
Memorable dialogue: John weakly attempts to build the fence that says “don’t kill yourself on my property”:
Sia: Is this to prevent people from falling?
John: They don’t fall, they jump.
Sia: What’s the difference?
Juan: The fall is involuntary.
Sia: Ah, so you don’t throw yourself into love.
John: No. In love you shouldn’t jump.
Sex and skin: Nothing worth mentioning.
Our opinion: How charitable are we feeling today? Not much? I feel the same way! The central irony of Find me falling This is how the story of a man who wrote a tune that moved millions of people hits a terrible note in the opening scene and continues to do so again and again, weaving its grim suicide subplot into a flimsy, escapist romantic comedy. And let it be known that people committing suicide become a key plot device to improve John’s mental state, which is what we’re going for. In fact You’re worried, aren’t you? Maybe he’ll even be inspired to exploit the crude metaphor even further by writing a new hit song about “falling,” but no spoilers!
The film’s focus on self-inflicted death isn’t its only clumsy quality. The dialogue is awful, the situations are trite, and the characters are flimsy. Writer-director Stelana Kliris has a keen eye for the sun-drenched Cypriot landscapes, but beyond that, the film is a struggle: the editing and performances (limited by this ill-considered script) are as clumsy as the tone. We get little context about John’s life beyond his status as a fading “sex god” star mourning a lost love from before he was famous. We spend a lot of time with Melina, but we never really get to understand who she is, what her dreams and aspirations are, because she seems too charismatic to be content with being a small-town denizen singing to 27 people at the local bar and grill.
Of course, there are things to be revealed as the plot progresses, and John and Sia dig into old longings and wonder what the future holds for them. But it’s hard to get invested in the state of these characters’ emotional lives when the movie throws a planet-destroying, thematic-sized asteroid at us right off the bat and asks us to survive the impact. That seems to me to be asking too much.
Our calling: SKIP IT. No. No, no, no, no, no, nooooooo.
John Serba is a freelance writer and film critic based in Grand Rapids, Michigan.
