journal features

movie review - Fall

the journal of Michael Werneburg

twenty-eight years and a million words

Kokubunji, 2024.06.08

At some point, perhaps around the time I became a parent, I developed a strong aversion to heights. Not much of a showing for a guy with pilots all over the family, but here I am. So it was with some trepidation that I agreed with The Girl to watch a movie about two young ladies who climb an abandoned radio antenna for the social media cred, only to get stuck atop the tower. The Girl does like horror and suspense flicks, so I should have known she'd go for this.

The thing grew on me as the characters became more relatable through the lens of their struggle to remain alive. There's only so much you can do with a situation like theirs, of course, but our heroes do some clever things up there. It's not a perfect movie, there are just a few to many morons and utter assholes in this movie that I feel the writers felt were necessary to keep the women trapped atop the spire. But these are offset nicely by the spirit of the leads and the way they come to terms with who they are and what they need to do with their lives. Also, it's not every day that you see an Unreliable Narrator employed to such effect, and I applaud.

Recommended.

rand()m quote

One day you will take a fork in the road, and you're going to have to make a decision about which direction you want to go. If you go one way, you can be somebody. You will have to make compromises and you will have to turn your back on your friends. But you will be a member of the club and you will get promoted and get good assignments. Or you can go the other way and you can do something [...] for yourself. If you decide to do something, you may not get promoted and get good assignments and you certainly will not be a favorite of your superiors. But you won't have to compromise yourself. To be somebody or to do something. In life there is often a roll call. That's when you have to make a decision. To be or to do.

—John Boyd, US Air Force