Terrance Odette’s Fall, scheduled to open in Toronto on Dec. 5, taps into the still simmering pedophilia scandal that has rocked the Roman Catholic church for the past decade.
Father Sam Ryan (Michael Murphy) is a fine parish priest in Niagara Falls, Canada. He tends to congregants in a retirement home, dispenses advice to a young couple planning to marry, delivers sermons in church, listens to confessions and administers the last rites to a woman on death’s door.
In short, he’s a busy priest coping with a fixed routine.
When he receives a hand-written letter from a man whom he knew as a boy 40 years ago, Father Ryan’s placid life tumbles into a vortex of anxiety and uncertainty. The letter, which suggests that he engaged in inappropriate sexual behavior unbecoming of a priest, preoccupies Father Ryan and sends him on an emotional roller coaster ride.
In this unassuming Canadian film, Murphy delivers an excellent understated performance as an aging, lonely priest who must come to terms with what seems like a painful and disgraceful past. With the letter gnawing on his soul, he drives to Sault Ste. Marie to confront his accuser, Chris Merchant. En route, he stops to visit his sister (Wendy Crewson) and mother, who live together.
Having arrived in Sault Ste. Marie in the dead of winter, he learns that Merchant is in a hospital, dying of cancer. Robbed of the chance to confront Merchant, he visits one of his relatives. She accuses him of having abused Merchant and threatens to call the police. The encounter shakes Father Ryan to the core.
This is not the only accusation Father Ryan faces. A gay Iranian Catholic (Cas Anvar) grieving the passing of his mother attacks his integrity as a priest, accusing him of being theologically “wishy-washy,” a claim he honestly tries to address.
In a very flawed world, Father Ryan is hardly the sole sinner. Chelsea (Katie Boland, a young woman engaged to be married, blatantly betrays her fiance, placing Father Ryan in something of a moral quandary.
Fall, a movie of quiet power, proceeds from the assumption that no man or woman on this earth is perfect. Considering what transpires in Fall, it’s a pretty safe assumption to make.