Day 177: The Fall

In a hospital in 1920s Los Angeles, Roy (Lee Pace) tells Alexandria (Catinca Untaru) a fantastical story so that she’ll fetch him morphine so he can kill himself. Alexandria thinks of Roy as her father and she’s devastated that he’s killing everyone off in the story and begs him to stop.

Roy's depression adds a wonderful layer to the relationship between him and Alexandria. She just wants to listen to him and for him to be alright but he can't seem to see through his own pain. In exchange for more story, Roy asks Alexandria to fetch him some morphine. The plan is for him to kill himself and he uses their friendship to try to make it happen. She ends up only getting him three pills though, after confusing the 'e' in morphine with '3'. He then asks her to get the morphine pills from the cabinet of someone else staying in the hospital and he takes them all but when he wakes up he realises they're sugar pills. She wants to make him happy so in the middle of the night she sneaks off to get another bottle for him but when she's reaching for it, she falls and ends up badly hurt. He is devastated that she was hurt while trying to help him and he sinks even further into his depression. He continues on with the story but he kills off the majority of the characters and they're both crying because they know what's coming next and he's determined to kill himself in the story but she begs him not to. He sees how much the story has affected her and he realises he does care for her, and so he doesn't die in the story and he doesn't kill himself in real life.

Such a beautiful film. Almost every shot is absolutely stunning and it really is a pleasure to watch the film just for that alone. I love the story and that she understands his sadness through it.

10/10