Before the year 2022 that made Jenna Ortega one of the brightest young stars we have right now, she starred in The Fallout, a film about a “school tragedy”, as the IMDb synopsis states. We live in a world where we all know what that means, but for some reason, nobody wants to say it out loud. Yes, as you can imagine, this movie deals with a school shooting. However, we primarily deal with the aftermath of one and how that affects the people around the survivors and their relationships. What a fucked up world we live in where this paragraph had to be written, and movies like these are made, by the way. The fact that this isn’t a “what if” movie, and that there is now an entire generation of American kids who probably relate to this movie a bit too much is just awful.

I didn’t know what to expect from this movie besides knowing that it deals with a school shooting. It deals with it almost instantly, and it is shot in the most effective way, where we don’t see the shooter or the aftermath, but we can hear everything as we are in the moment with what will become our main trio – Vada (Jenna’s character), Mia (Maddie Ziegler) and Quinton (Niles Fitch) and them hiding in the toilets, thinking that any moment, they might be the next ones to die.

That all happens within the first ten minutes. The film then focuses mainly on Vada and Mia’s characters, how they are affected by this horrible event and, more importantly, how their relationships with others change. Vada and Mia, despite not having anything in common before that shooting and never even talking to each other (at least that’s what the movie suggests), suddenly become close because of their trauma bond. They are in a uniquely shitty situation where it seems like they don’t have to put up a show in front of each other and can just be themselves, unlike what we see with Vada’s family, especially with her little sister.

Probably the smartest decision this movie made was to use Vada’s relationship with her little sister (Lumi Pollack) as almost a proxy for her entire family. The film even opens (before the shooting) with a phone call where Amelia (Vada’s sister) gets her first period and is freaking out because of it. Throughout the film, she acts like the younger sister who doesn’t really understand the severity of what her older sister has gone through, which is understandable. It is through her that Vada realises how she behaved towards everyone in one of the best and most touching scenes; the “bedroom visit” scene finally gets through to someone like Vada, who, until that moment, pretends that everything is fine even though she knows that it isn’t.

What I also liked was seeing different approaches to surviving an event like that. Vada is trying her hardest to cope and pretend like nothing happened; Mia does the same to an extent, but her family being gone in Europe for the entirety of the film puts her in a more isolating situation, where despite her popularity, she doesn’t seem to have anyone close but Vada. Then we have Quinton, who lost his younger brother, and it’s hinted that he needs to be the strong one for his family. Lastly, we have Nick, portrayed by Will Ropp (Vada’s best friend, at least before the shooting), who wants change and becomes the face of all the survivors and starts organising marches, going on TV, etc. I appreciated the nuance that although they all have been through the same event, they all respond to it differently, and what works for one person doesn’t work for the other. I also found it fascinating how an event like that can form a friendship (Vada and Mia) and break others too (Vada and Nick’s character).

This movie also has one of the most gut-punching endings I have seen in a while. I won’t go into spoilers, but in the last two minutes, we see and understand how difficult it is to “just get over” something like this. I understood that The Fallout won’t have a happy ending per se, but I didn’t expect that and how real it felt. As a person who hopes I won’t ever have to go through anything like this, when the ending happened, I was heart wrecked, but I also thought to myself: “That makes sense.” And here is, again, where I must mention how fucked up that is that we live in a world where not only movies like this exist, but heart wrecking ending “makes sense”.

The only critique I would have is the character’s work. For example, Vada’s dad, portrayed by John Ortiz, didn’t have to exist. For the majority of the film, even if he was in a scene, he was just there, not doing much, and we were relating everything through Julie Bowen, America’s favourite mom. Yes, Vada and him then have the nice yelling scene, but realistically, this could have been her mom and her, and it would make more sense. He almost seemed like a glorified extra, and the movie might have as well made Julie Bowen into a single mom or a widow. My other tiny issue was the unresolved relationship between Vada and Nick. I get that it’s not the point of this film, but we start with their relationship, and the movie ends, almost suggesting that these two might never speak. That seems a bit harsh.

But other than those tiny nitpicks, The Fallout worked for me and approached this brutal topic with the honesty, rawness and sincerity it deserved. I really hope that some 20/30 years from now, we won’t need films like these, but something tells me I am just being naïve.

Overall, The Fallout is a chilling movie about something that shouldn’t be happening at all. It’s a film that will stay with you no matter where you live in the world. I can’t imagine how this movie affects survivors, their families, or worse yet, those who had lost someone in one of many school shootings over the last 20+ years. This film is a painful yet much-needed watch for some people who still try to convince many that you need a semi-automatic rifle to “defend” yourself.

That’s all for this one! Did you see it? What did you think about it? Let me know!

Until next time,

Luke