The Fallout (2021)
“Is it over? Is it finished?” – Mia.
The Fallout (2021)
Directed by: Megan Park
Written by: Megan Park
Starring: Jenna Ortega, Maddie Ziegler, Shailene Woodley, Niles Fitch, Julie Bowen
I’m lucky enough to have grown up in a country where school shootings don’t happen. We weren’t frisked at security checkpoints or forced to practice ‘shooter-in-the-school’ drills, and instead enjoyed a sense of safety and security, blissfully unaware of the devastating impact school shootings have on thousands of Americans a year. Therefore movies like The Fallout help serve as a sobering reminder for people like me that we were the lucky ones.
The film follows high school student Vada (Ortega), who forms a strong bond with classmates Mia (Ziegler) and Quinton (Fitch) after they seek refuge together during a school shooting. Navigating the significant emotional trauma that follows, Vada must first learn how to deal with her own stress before mending relationships with both friends and family.
Anytime a movie explores such an emotionally sensitive topic as gun violence, I always enter a little bit cynically; ready to critique poor or insensitive choices. Sometimes the message is too one-sided, removing the possibility of a balanced debate (i.e. ‘Guns are bad’, or conversely, ‘Guns don’t kill people, people kill people’), and sometimes they play it too safe, not really exploring anything at all (‘Hey, the nice family survived, so at least that’s nice’). I believe The Fallout struck a nice balance, choosing not to wade too heavily into the anti-gun argument too directly, but instead opting to show how these tragedies affect such a large array of people in the aftermath.
What I mean by this is that the main characters in the film don’t immediately recover from the shooting and then march on congress demanding the gun laws be changed. This would feel too conceited, as if director Megan Park is yelling “HEY YOU SHOULD ALL HATE SCHOOL SHOOTINGS” at the audience. We already agree that shootings are bad, so that approach would feel incredibly disingenuous. Instead she lets the emotional resonance of Vada, Mia, and Quinton recovering from the event in their own unique ways communicate this message to us. The subtext is very clearly still ‘this should never happen again,’ but that’s only because the characters are all so profoundly impacted by the shooting.
And the best thing the film does is show how many people a tragic event can impact. Not only are individuals affected, with Vada suffering panic attacks and not really knowing “how she is supposed to grieve,” but friendships and families are also fractured and damaged with the added emotional pressures.
Ziegler was quite good as an emotionally detached ‘popular girl with a troubled home life’, but Jenna Ortega carried this film. After this and her brilliant turn in Scream 5, I think Ortega is my new favourite actress. With equal parts innocence, sadness, and a dash of teen angst, she elevates this film above a glossy PSA and makes it an impactful coming-of-age film.
With a powerful message and a charismatic lead, The Fallout reinforces that a system that continues to let this happen is broken, and emphasises that the right to feel safe should be a basic human right, especially for our kids.
Rating: 7.5/10