Susan Granger’s review of “One Fall” (Teatown Media/Compass Entertainment/Paladin)
Bearing absolutely no connection to Ian Fleming’s iconic 007, the protagonist is named James Bond (Marcus Dean Fuller). Other than he’s recently been released from prison, there’s nothing remarkable about him except he heals a cut on his finger immediately. In flashbacks, it’s revealed that James fell off a cliff, plunged down 200 feet, lived to tell the tale – and disappeared.
Returning to his Midwestern home, James discovers that his father (Mark La Mura) is hospitalized, recovering from a stroke, his ex-fiancé Julie (Zoe McLellan) is now in a relationship with his doctor brother, Werber (James McCaffrey), and there’s yet another backstory in which there was a car crash that killed his mother and for which someone else took the blame.
So James takes up gardening and – voila! – the seeds he plants one day blossom into bowers of beautiful flowers the next, kind of like Daisy Gamble in “On a Clear Day You Can See Forever.” That ‘miracle’ stuns the comic-book crazed teenager next-door (Seamus Mulcahy) who promptly proclaims that James must be a superhero – in need of a costume.
Working as a janitor at the hospital, James comes in daily contact with various patients – like a woman suffering from multiple-sclerosis (Lee Anne Hutchinson) and a terminal cancer patient (Phyllis Somerville). Possessing the power to heal, James launches them on the road to recovery with a simple touch. Not surprisingly, the abrupt transformation in their health is disconcerting to the staff, particularly James’s up-tight, older brother, who is even more appalled when he realizes James is charging a fee for his services.
But why can’t James heal his father? Because there’s some sort of mysterious force that prevents them from establishing a psychic contact.
That this metaphysical fable ever got made is a testament to the tenacity of writer/director/actor Marcus Dean Fuller, but he would have been far better served by having some collaborators on his journey into the realm of ‘magical realism.’
On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to10, “One Fall” is a spiritual 4 – with supernatural overtones.
