The Fall

Once upon a time during the movie industry’s salad days, an injured, suicidally depressed stuntman (Lee Pace) lay in a Los Angeles hospital bed, telling tall tales of swashbuckling outlaws to a little girl with a broken arm (Catinca Untaru). If you ever figured the guy who made the video for R.E.M.'s “Losing My Religion” might do wonders with a flamboyantly arty, convoluted take on The Princess Bride set in spectacular locations throughout the world, well, have we got the movie for you. The guy is director Tarsem Singh, who with Dan Gilroy and Nico Soultanakis has adapted the 1981 film Yo Ho Ho, written by Valeri Petrov and directed by Zako Heskija. In Tarsem’s telling, the stuntman’s tale evolves not just according to his own deteriorating mind and mood, but also through essential contributions from the girl’s observant imagination. The Fall dazzles with its stampede of set pieces but really scores with the tender, organic-seeming rapport between Pace and Untaru.