By Thomas M. Puhr.
A film about the very-human desire to be seen – really seen – by another, and the accompanying fear of what that vulnerability may bring.”
“Do I look happy or satisfied?” Eli (Joshua Burge) asks an unsuspecting couple in Central Park. “I wouldn’t know. I can’t see my face. I can see it on your faces. I can’t see it on my face. Everybody’s got a face but me. Yeah, I got no face. How about that? How about that?” Delivered with a warbling intensity by Burge, these lines cut right to the heart of writer-director (as well as cinematographer, producer, editor, and sound designer) Alex Andre’s Pratfall (2023), a film about the very-human desire to be seen – really seen – by another, and the accompanying fear of what that vulnerability may bring.
We learn early on that Eli is grieving the recent deaths of both his mother and girlfriend. Other than this detail, however, the portrait Andre sketches of his protagonist is tantalizingly opaque. Eli lives in a relatively upscale apartment and always has plenty of cash at hand, but he doesn’t seem to work. Or sleep, for that matter. He instead spends his days and nights wandering New York City, instigating fights with a dealer named Gio (Xavier Reyes), and sometimes shouting over his shoulder – much to the discomfort of passersby – at an unseen assailant. And always while wearing the same maroon button-down and torn jeans. He may be an addict or mentally ill, or maybe a few too many hard knocks have pushed him beyond his breaking point.
One afternoon, Eli crosses paths with Joelle (Chloé Groussard), a beautiful French woman with an equally mysterious background. She has no money, though her phone occasionally rings with calls from concerned family members. He buys her a hotdog and agrees to show her around the “real” city. It’s unclear why Joelle is so eager to follow this guy around, but the most obvious answer – money – doesn’t appear to be a motive: When he offers the hard-up woman a wad of cash, she responds with indignation. And he’s not an easy companion, either, constantly mocking her “I ♥ NY” t-shirt and threatening to abandon her if she talks too much. Some viewers will find their unlikely friendship a tough pillow to swallow, but I think it’s a testament to how powerful a force mutual loneliness and desperation can be. In any case, Burge and Groussard sell it.
If Pratfall’s midsection suggests an off-kilter romantic comedy, then its closing act jerks us back to earth with a shocking burst of violence.”
The table is set for a brooding tour through New York’s underbelly, so it’s a pleasant surprise when the two actually have a good time doing basic tourist stuff: going to museums, getting cheap pizza, having a competition to see who can hail a taxi first, and drinking lots of diner coffee. Wisely, Andre does not overwrite these scenes and mostly just watches his two leads hanging out (a lot of their dialogue feels improvised). When Eli starts to loosen up and enjoy himself, the transformation feels earned – thanks in large part to Groussard’s warm, endearing performance. Though she undeniably has the less meaty role, her laid-back poise is a stabilizing counterweight to Burge’s frenetic, staccato line deliveries. If they were both powder kegs, it would be a little much.
For a while, Pratfall flirts with becoming an out-and-out romantic comedy, complete with wordplay (Eli and Joelle constantly mispronounce each other’s names) and visual gags (when Eli loses the taxi bet, he has to wear the I ♥ NY shirt). Even their meeting in the park, if tweaked a bit, could function as a meet-cute in another movie. Lending tension to even the breeziest scenes, however, is our suspicion that Eli is one bad moment away from a total meltdown. Sharpening this tension is the pair’s unwritten rule that sleep is not allowed; as day and night rotate with increasing randomness, their excursion takes on the quality of a barely controlled nightmare. They both desperately need some sleep.
With its handheld camerawork, location shooting, actor-centric ethos, and R&B score, this film will likely elicit comparisons with A Woman Under the Influence (1974). Andre is no doubt indebted to Cassavetes, but I was reminded more than once of Lodge Kerrigan’s 2004 psychodrama Keane, also about an unstable, possibly dangerous man who wanders a city and takes in a vulnerable woman. Like Kerrigan and Cassavetes, Andre seems intent on getting as close to his actors as possible before bumping the camera lens against their foreheads. This approach doesn’t feel derivative, though, because it’s thematically justified (think back to Eli’s face comments). We come to feel like an unseen third member of the party, struggling to keep up.
If Pratfall’s midsection suggests an off-kilter romantic comedy, then its closing act jerks us back to earth with a shocking burst of violence. I must admit these final scenes disappointed me – not because they felt contrived or unearned, but because I’d hoped certain characters would know (and do) better. Sometimes, people are faceless by choice.
Thomas M. Puhr lives in Chicago, where he teaches English and language arts. A regular contributor to Bright Lights Film Journal, he has published “‘Mysterious Appearances’ in Jonathan Glazer’s Identity Trilogy: Sexy Beast, Birth and Under the Skin” in issue 15.2 of Film International. His book Fate in Film: A Deterministic Approach to Cinema is available from Wallflower Press.