Virtually every scene in Fall is in the service of the clammy hands and trembling knees

fall, a terrifying spectacle in which two young women climb a TV tower over 600 meters high and get stuck at the top, is so functional and effective in design and execution that even the title is written vertically. Almost every scene in the film, except for the poorly played and in any case not very convincing run-up, is in the service of the clammy hands and trembling knees in which the purchase of a cinema ticket results.

more is fall not. Sometimes a film doesn’t have to be more.

A year after Becky (Grace Fulton) saw her lover fall to the ground during a mountaineering session together, she tries to confront her trauma at the invitation of best friend Hunter (Virginia Gardner) – at an altitude of more than 600 meters. In the deserted California desert, B-movie director Scott Mann (Final Score) the tower as a colossus that can only be conquered during a strong fit of madness. The entire structure vibrates as Becky and Hunter take their first steps on the rusted steps, including the steel cables that keep the tower upright. The material ticks and creaks. A loose nut appears in close-up. The wind is howling frighteningly. Vultures lurk eagerly.

Becky and Hunter succeed in their first goal with conviction: on the highest plateau, after a nail-biting exciting scramble around two large satellite dishes, they make the most eerie shots with their phones and the drone they brought with them. Images to look at later so you never have to be afraid of anything again. In this way Hunter (who pulled out a push-up bra especially for these pictures) makes a virtue of the almost unbearable need. During those moments, the film also playfully pokes at the vanity of a generation that makes frantic efforts to collect as many likes as possible on social media. Incidentally, this raises a nice life question: how much is such a cleavage at 600 meters worth if the stairs break down?

Without telephone coverage and with no one in the area who sees or hears the women, transforms fall into a kind of puzzle film on the square meter. A variation on movies like The Shallows (Blake Lively on a buoy while a hungry shark swims in circles) and 127 Hours (James Franco stuck under a rock), in which MacGyver-like tinkering with rope, hair band, a shoe and a selfie stick should bring the solution.

Not every find or twist is then equally successful, but that is hardly a loss: the height remains palpable throughout the film.