Trailer
Plot summary
Roy Walker, a stuntman, is laid up in a Los Angeles hospital in the 1920s, unable to move his legs after a bridge jump performed for a film. Alexandria, a Romanian-born child on the ward, is mending a broken arm. He begins with a tale of Alexander the Great, the king she is named for, then promises a longer story if she comes back the next morning. His epic gathers five men: a silent Indian warrior, Otta Benga, an ex-slave who shoots a bow, Luigi, an Italian who works with explosives, Charles Darwin and his pet monkey Wallace, and a masked bandit. Each has been wronged by the ruler Governor Odious, and all five are after revenge. As Roy speaks, Alexandria sees the hospital's staff and visitors as the figures in his story.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about The Fall (2006)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Harvey Weinstein walked out of The Fall's test screening after 15 minutes, unable to follow the plot, and Tarsem claimed Weinstein then tried to sabotage the film, which was held back from release for two years until 2008.
- At the director's suggestion, Lee Pace stayed in a bed and used a wheelchair for most of the early shoot, convincing most of the crew he really could not walk, to keep his character's paralysis real for his young co-star.
- For the blue city scenes in Jodhpur, Tarsem gave local residents blue paint to refresh their houses; the genuinely repainted city, rather than post-production effects, produced the film's vibrant blue.
SPOILER
The plot point where Alexandria misreads the letter E as the number 3 came from a real accidental misreading by six-year-old Catinca Untaru during filming, which Tarsem turned into a twist in the story.- Tarsem revealed in a 2024 interview that Elle Fanning was considered to play Alexandria and even met with him before the film's casting.
- New Zealand filmmaker Peter Jackson cast Lee Pace as Thranduil in the Hobbit trilogy after being impressed by his performance in The Fall.
- Tarsem shot portions of the hospital scenes between Catinca Untaru and Lee Pace through small holes in the bed curtains so the pair could interact spontaneously despite the crew surrounding them.
