Review | Toronto 2021: The Falls movie review – pandemic drama by A Sun director Chung Mong-hong contemplates life’s surprises and disappointments

A darkly comic look at the surprises and disappointments life throws up, The Falls is the story of a mother and daughter living through the pandemic in Taiwan

Chung draws touching performances from Alyssa Chia and Gingle Wang for his film, screened as a special presentation at the Toronto International Film Festival

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Alyssa Chia in a still from The Falls. Photo: courtesy of TIFF

Published: 6:45pm, 16 Sep 2021Updated: 7:00pm, 16 Sep 2021

3.5/5 stars

A divorced mother and her teenage daughter overcome their fraught relationship and rediscover their trust in each other in The Falls, filmed in 2020 during the Covid-19 outbreak in Taiwan.

Chung Mong-hong’s follow-up to his multiple Golden Horse Award winner A Sun tells an unusually restrained domestic story, headed by two women – an anomaly for a filmmaker whose work displays an obsession with crime and criminals.

The Falls pits its protagonists against both mental illness and the harsh new realities of a pandemic, and takes a darkly comic look at the disappointments and surprises life throws up.

Alyssa Chia Jing-wen (The World Between Us) impresses as Pin-wen, the single mother of 18-year-old student Xiao Jing (Gingle Wang Ching, Detention) and a top executive at a multinational firm, where she’s working under intense pressure.

Pin-wen’s life takes a turn into psychological mystery when she is forced to self-quarantine in the luxurious apartment she shares with her daughter, who displays alternately hostile and creepy behaviour.