There are a number of ways one might expect a lower-tier Netflix romcom to start – a candlelit proposal, an important business meeting about business, a splashy New York gala filmed in Vancouver – but chances are, you’re probably not expecting Harry Connick Jr to witness a suicide.
It’s the jarring start to his otherwise fairly anodyne Netflix effort Find Me Falling, a film that is about falling in love but is also about … falling to your death. He plays John Allman, an American rock star (whose level of fame is impossible to define from scene to scene) who moves to an idyllic new home in Cyprus only to find that the cliff it looks out on is a notorious suicide spot. After being unable to save the aforementioned jumper, he’s determined to avoid it from happening again and this is somehow not even the film’s A plot (!), which instead concerns him reconnecting with an old lover. Years prior, he met and fell for a local and is now hoping to reignite the spark.
It’s softer and less slapstick-driven than Netflix’s recent Brooke Shields vehicle Mother of the Bride but it has a loosely similar setup – actor in their late 50s goes abroad and reconnects with the one who got away – and is similarly hard to remember once it’s over. At least, unlike that film, and a great many others on the platform (Irish Wish, step forward), it’s more immersed in the culture in which it’s set, written and directed by Cypriot film-maker Stelana Kliris. It’s never really enough to elevate it into distinctive territory but it’s enough to push it out of the realm of inauthenticity, where cultural offence is a risk.
The rocker’s strange day-to-day schedule has him half-writing a terrible new song (no prizes for guessing the title!), befriending a young local musician played by Ali Fumiko Whitney who somehow has an American accent (“explained” by the odd line: “We don’t all have an accent but I am definitely from here!”), wooing his very easily wooed old flame played by Agni Scott, eating halloumi and trying to prevent people from killing themselves. It’s ultimately not strange enough to truly divert, and even a supposedly major soapy reveal halfway through can’t grab our attention away from whatever else it is that we’re also doing (a cursory read of the synopsis gives it away). Kliris’s cosy small-town quirkiness is more appealing conceptually and on screen it just isn’t as funny or as charming or as lived-in as she seems to think and other than the impressive view from the suicide shack, even the scenery doesn’t do the job that it should.
While the story of an old flame coming alight again can be a very poignant one, especially with an older age attached, there’s very little here to move us; a crippling dearth of chemistry between two likable enough leads who are forced into thin, circumstantial conflicts and overdramatic reactions that feel unearned and at times baffling. The hows and whys of their backstory and current predicament are too vague and there’s only one remotely interesting speech about how actually being with someone is more painful and difficult than being alone. Connick Jr still has his mum’s-favourite-crooner charm but the most he’s given in return is a free holiday to Cyprus.
Find Me Falling is now available on Netflix
In the US, you can call or text the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline on 988, chat on 988lifeline.org, or text HOME to 741741 to connect with a crisis counselor. In the UK and Ireland, Samaritans can be contacted on freephone 116 123, or email jo@samaritans.org or jo@samaritans.ie. In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is 13 11 14. Other international helplines can be found at befrienders.org.
