It’s no surprise that Falling, Viggo Mortensen’s directorial debut, feels just as inscrutable as the man behind the lens. They are not even allowed the relief of anger, because dementia behaviour has to be forgiven. Since then, he’s portrayed a once and future king in the Tolkein universe, a father navigating the apocalypse, a Russian hitman, and a prejudiced personal driver. Now John has given up drinking, perhaps because it is a pleasure that only fuels his rage at Willis. In 1984, Viggo Mortensen debuted as a Lieutenant in a George Washington miniseries. Viggo also stars as John Peterson, who is living in California with his husband Eric and their daughter Monica. John Petersen (Viggo Mortensen) lives with his partner Eric (Terry Chen) and their adopted daughter Monica in Southern California. So just sit back and watch in wonderment admiration and gratitude. Falling review – Viggo Mortensen's powerful drama of a father with dementia Mortensen co-stars in his directorial debut depicting a father-son relationship on the rocks Lance Henriksen in Falling. “Falling” is such a bespoke piece of filmmaking, and Mortensen so entwined in the fabric of its story, that it’s no surprise to learn that he even composed the delicate score himself. FFF20 REVIEW. A hard man, he is used to getting his way. The directorial debut of Viggo Mortensen, which he also wrote and stars in, is an empathetic but gruelling account of a father-son relationship. Now the old man has just about accepted that he cannot look after himself any more, and has come to stay with John and John’s husband, Eric (Terry Chen), in their California home. Falling, review: Viggo Mortensen’s directorial debut is a compassionate portrait of dementia and division His father isn’t some pantomime villain; even he was capable of great tenderness. Viggo Mortensen steps behind the camera for this observational drama about bridging generational divides. Falling is a drama written and directed by veteran actor Viggo Mortensen, marking his directorial debut. Viggo Mortensen on Falling star Lance Henriksen: ‘He’s like a wolf who might gobble you up’, A family in pain … Lance Henriksen and Viggo Mortensen in Falling. Nearing the end of his life, Willis (Lance Henriksen), is losing his memory and much of what redeemed him as a person. ‘Falling’ Review: Viggo Mortensen’s Directorial Debut is a Total Disaster [TIFF 2020] TIFF 2020 Line-Up Includes Films from Regina King, Viggo Mortensen, Halle Berry, Werner Herzog & More To that list, “the creation of quietly assured cinema” must now be added. In cinemas and streaming via modernfilms.com. Change can be scary. An attempt by his long-suffering gay son John (Mortensen) to relocate him to urban California is a blue rag to this Red State bully. Viggo Mortensen’s directorial debut is a clunky family drama. Henriksen plays Willis, an ornery, snowy-haired farmer and widower in the cold expanses of upstate New York: he is a lion in winter, or maybe a junkyard dog in winter. Could he have broken out more, shown more anger? T o scan through a CV which is, to put it mildly, dizzyingly eclectic, you’d likely have a tough time guessing what type of film the actor Viggo Mortensen might make were he to step behind the camera. Falling review - Viggo Mortensen's powerful directorial debut . Falling review: Viggo Mortensen’s directorial debut is as inscrutable as the man behind the lens. Also Read: Review Of Uncle Frank: Being Gay In the 1970s Written and directed by one of its stars, Viggo Mortensen, in his feature debut, Falling might not be much of a laugh, but it works well as a showcase for the dramatic chops of Lance Henriksen, the genre film stalwart of reliable gravitas, who has probably been underexploited by more serious-minded cinema over the years. So just sit back and watch in wonderment admiration and gratitude. REVIEW… Falling review - Viggo Mortensen's powerful directorial debut Portrait of a disintegrating mind: Lance Henriksen excels as an angry old man. Read full article. 18/09/2020 | San Sebastián 2020 | Donostia Award Screenings A cycle of abuse? Either way, this is a very substantial achievement. Falling is released in cinemas on 4 December. Viggo Mortensen's directorial debut is being feted at San Sebastián, where the actor-director is receiving a Donostia Award for Lifetime Achievement . A huge breakout role, no matter how far into a star’s storied career, can come to define them in ways which appear inescapable. “For you maybe,” snaps Willis, supine in his hospital gown. Willis (Lance Henriksen) is stubborn as a mule. With his memories of the farm and its horses and its vision of frontier masculinity, I think Mortensen has probably absorbed the influence of Larry McMurtry. In the Lord of the Rings star’s powerful debut as a director, Lance Henriksen plays a homophobic father compelled to move in with his gay son, Last modified on Thu 3 Dec 2020 19.36 GMT. Viggo Mortensen's first directorial feature, Falling -- a mix of hope and existentialist despair -- is rooted in the story of his family. “Falling” is the name of American Viggo Mortensen’s first picture he directed, out in France on December 30 2020. Mortensen plays John Peterson, a middle-aged gay man and the abused and harried son of the homophobic Willis (Lance Henriksen, left) What’s left is bilious intolerance and a foul temper, which Willis deploys with a regularity that can feel a little cyclical. But it erases other painful memories of wrongdoing that, through a mysterious, sickening quantum, get displaced all too vividly into the minds of the grownup children and carers. For a first timer Viggo Mortensen never falters even when the characters fumble for the right words to describe overpowering emotions, the tone mood and tenor are pitch-perfect.This is a master director at work. With some self-effacement, Mortensen has conceded the performer’s alpha prerogative to Henriksen. December 3, 2020, 8:15 AM. PLOT: A man (Viggo Mortensen) tries to reconcile his relationship with his cantankerous, abusive father (Lance Henriksen) during a disastrous visit. Lance Henriksen and Viggo Mortensen in Falling (Photo: Modern Films) Falling review 4 Falling review Euan Franklin Often when actors turn their hands to directing, they focus too much on the performances and not enough on anything else. Review: Falling. Film Review: Falling. by Markie Robson-Scott Friday, 04 December 2020. And though an accomplished author, “Falling” marks Moretensen’s first screenplay […] The prospect of spending a couple hours with one of the most tremendously unpleasant movie characters you’re likely to ever encounter might not even be the first reason to check out of Viggo Mortensen’s Falling, but it’s certainly the most apparent. Sverrir Gudnason plays young Willis: nervy and insecure with a thwarted need for love that curdles into abuse; Hannah Gross plays his sensitive young wife, who cries at LP records of Chopin; and Bracken Burns plays Jill, the woman for whom he leaves Gwen, a wary stepmother to the resentful and bewildered children. He still lives alone on the family farm despite declining health. With Viggo Mortensen, Lance Henriksen, Sverrir Gudnason, Laura Linney. This is the case in Viggo Mortensen’s directorial debut, Falling. This, of course, is the point – toxic encounters between increasingly senile Willis and his gay son, John (Mortensen), are doomed to repeat themselves, no less painful for the fact that they have played out many times before. Directed by Viggo Mortensen, Falling gets 3 and a half stars. Cronenberg has a cameo as a proctologist who has to give the ageing Willis a rectal exam, the cue for all sorts of bad-taste wisecracks about his son’s sexual identity. Viggo Mortensen is a man of many talents – poetry, painting, photography, music, saving Middle-earth. Mortensen takes a determined walk across the hot coals of family pain; the drama shows how the condition, with its outbreaks of anger and fear, locks the sufferer into disjointed memories that cannot be expressed or made sense of, a mute ecstasy of loneliness. His debuts are a success, the movie is very-well directed and played. After showing signs of dementia, Willis (Lance Henriksen) moves from his remote farm to California with his son John (Viggo Mortensen). Falling Review. John’s sister, Sarah (a typically strong performance by Laura Linney), stops by with her family for a lunch – which, as Willis yelps and snarls his bigoted insults and sneers, becomes a group martyrdom of tongue-biting silence and subject-changing smiles from the older generation, while the teens are derisive and unafraid. Though Mortensen has highlighted the family parallels, Falling isn’t strictly autobiographical. Gudnason shows that Willis was not always a villain: he wanted to bond with his son (though not his daughter) through hunting, and Willis is thrilled that John shows a talent for it, at least at first. Viggo Mortensen: Lord of the Rings hottie to director of arthouse film Falling. This is a master director at work. Lance Henriksen as Willis and Viggo Mortensen as his son, John, in Mortensen’s directorial debut, Falling Kevin Maher Wednesday December 02 2020, 5.00pm , The Times Directed by Viggo Mortensen. Mortensen co-stars in his directorial debut depicting a father-son relationship on the rocks. Falling review – Viggo Mortensen family drama feels too familiar James Luxford James is one of City A.M.'s film critics and a regular on both TV and radio discussing the latest movie releases The film stars Mortensen as John Peterson, a middle-aged gay man whose conservative and homophobic father Willis (Lance Henriksen) starts to exhibit symptoms of dementia, forcing him to sell the family farm and move to Los Angeles to live with John and his husband Eric (). Indeed, one hopes there’s considerable artistic licence taken in portraying toxic, ailing patriarch farmer Willis. Share "Son, are you sure you're a fag? But a whole past flows beneath this stressed present like an underground stream: that of Willis’s memories – and John and Sarah’s. For a first-timer, Viggo Mortensen never falters even when the characters fumble for the right words to describe overpowering emotions, the tone, mood, and tenor are pitch-perfect. It’s the right decision: Henriksen’s Willis, in all his self-defeating cantankerous arrogance, is so commanding. Clarisse Loughrey. There is real passion and tragedy in these vivid flashback memories, triggered by moods, shapes, sounds. Homophobia is the one of his many attitudes that have now come obsessively to the fore because his son John (played with reticent restraint by Mortensen) has come out as gay. Falling is a 2020 drama film written and directed by Viggo Mortensen in his feature directorial debut. John (Mortensen) lives in … John Peterson lives with his partner Eric and their adopted daughter in Southern California. Just occasionally, there is black comedy. Tellingly, Willis is shown watching Hawks’s Red River, with John Wayne, on TV – and maybe, via McMurtry’s script for The Last Picture Show (about Red River), the McMurtry DNA has indirectly arrived at Mortensen’s work in the present day. But their relationship deteriorates and Willis gives John a scar above the lip which, worryingly, appears to match an ancient scar of his own. However, until now, he’s never directed. Viggo Mortensen is a formidable creative presence in the movies: taking on complex work as an actor with directors such as David Cronenberg and Lisandro Alonso, investing the star capital he earned with his turn as Aragorn in Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings trilogy, and doing a workmanlike job as wise-guy driver Tony Lip cured of his picturesque 1960s racism in the egregious Oscar-winner Green Book.Now he has written and directed his first movie, and it’s a really valuable work, beautifully edited and shot, with a wonderful performance by the veteran actor Lance Henriksen: a sombre, clear-eyed look at the bitter endgame of dementia.