The Artist s Wife (Bruce Dern/Lena Olin),
The Roads Not Taken (Javier Bardem),
Dick Johnson Is Dead (Netflix doc about a daughter reenacting imaginative scenarios of her dementia-suffering psychiatrist father s impending death), the BBC s
Elizabeth Is Missing (with Glenda Jackson s bravura silver screen return after a 30-year absence), the Australian
Relic, and
With
Falling, the inevitable LGBTQ-related spin on this issue has arrived, written and directed in his debut by Viggo Mortensen, thrice Oscar-nominated actor, but forever earmarked as Aragorn, the King of Gondor, in
The Lord of the Rings. A contemporary polymath, dabbling in poetry, experimental music, and abstract painting, Mortensen has dedicated
Falling review: Viggo Mortensen excels in heart-piercing drama
• 5 min read
The actor and director talks to Peter Travers about his newest film.Brendan Adam-Zwelling
Get ready to discover a new side to Viggo Mortensen, a three-time Oscar nominee.
The 62-year-old multi-talented actor stands out Falling, his directorial debut. The heart-piercing human drama displays all the traits that define Mortensen as an actor: strength, sensitivity and offbeat humor.
Brendan Adam-Zwelling
A scene from Falling.
Mortensen, who also wrote, scored and co-produced Falling, excels as John Peterson, a gay man coping with a homophobic father plagued by dementia. The ornery old man, Willis, is played by veteran actor Lance Henriksen, who has starred in Aliens and played a vampire leader in Near Dark. Henriksen delivers the fullest and finest performance of his career.
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CST
Quiver Distribution presents a film written and directed by Viggo Mortensen. Rated R (for language throughout including offensive slurs, crude sexual references, brief sexuality and nudity). Running time: 112 minutes. Available Friday on demand. Alas, though well-intentioned and photographed with a precise eye for detail, this is a distant third to those two fine films, despite the excellent work by Mortensen as a long-suffering son and by the chiseled-faced veteran character actor Lance Henriksen (“The Terminator,” “Aliens”) as his bitter, angry, homophobic and vile father, who has dementia and is no longer capable of living on his own. And therein lies the insurmountable problem with “Falling”: It’s not that the illness has soured Henriksen’s Willis and somehow turned him into a cruel monster; as we learn in sepia-toned flashbacks, he’s always been a mostly terrible human being, and throughout the story, we can’t help but wonder why Morte