The Fall (2006) with Jen Cownie

Summary

Sentimental Garbage: Episode Summary – "The Fall (2006)" with Jen Cownie

Released on July 10, 2025 | Host: Caroline O'Donoghue | Guest: Jen Cownie

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1. Personal Reflections on Nostalgia and Weddings

As Caroline approaches her two-year wedding anniversary, she delves into the bittersweet nature of nostalgia. She shares anecdotes highlighting how even the most chaotic moments in life weddings often become cherished memories over time.

• Caroline: "The stuff that goes catastrophically badly is the stuff that you'll remember the most fondly of all." [00:59]

She recounts her own wedding mishap when the musicians failed to show up. The situation was salvaged by her friend Harry Harris, who spontaneously played the piano, turning a potential disaster into one of the day's most memorable moments.

• Caroline: "Harry just revealed that he taught himself how to play piano over Covid... it was one of the most special moments of my entire day." [02:30]

Caroline also shares a poignant story about her friend Haam from Gaza, whose wedding was disrupted by war. Haam and his wife Rowan are struggling to survive amidst ongoing conflict, highlighting the harsh realities faced by many.

• Caroline: "Haam is from Gaza... his home was destroyed. Five days into the war, his daughter Karaz was born." [03:50]

She emphasizes the importance of supporting such families, providing a GoFundMe link in the episode notes.

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2. Introduction of Guest – Jen Cownie

Caroline introduces Jen Cownie, affectionately dubbing her the "naked mystic who lives in a tree," setting a whimsical tone for their conversation.

• Caroline: "Welcome to Magical Garbage... joining me is the naked mystic who lives in a tree. It's Jen Coney." [04:15]

3. The Charm of Postcards and Shared Living Experiences

The hosts reminisce about sending surprise postcards during the summer, enjoying spontaneous connections and updates from friends.

• Jen Cownie: "You just look at your post box, and there's just a little card from a friend. You didn't even know they were on holiday." [04:38]

They discuss their recent experiences with moving houses, the challenges of living together temporarily, and the joy of now residing close to each other.

• Caroline: "I'm back in my house again and it's just lovely." [05:40]
• Jen Cownie: "We live about a 15-minute walk." [06:05]

4. A Shared Movie Experience – 'Jurassic World Rebirth'

Caroline and Jen recount their recent trip to watch "Jurassic World Rebirth," sharing laughs over memorable moments, including Jen arriving late and slightly intoxicated.

• Caroline: "I couldn't get to sleep until 3am because I was so overstimulated." [07:28]
• Jen Cownie: "I was really drunk, having gone to a natural wine fair... I just like rolled on in there." [09:02]

Their conversation highlights mutual appreciation for the film's action sequences and character portrayals, particularly praising Lee Pace's performance.

• Caroline: "I loved seeing Scarlett Johansson entering her Lara Croft era at the tender age of like, 40." [10:12]
• Jen Cownie: "Seeing Jonathan Bailey quickly becoming my favorite person to be in film or theater." [10:30]

They also touch upon the film's use of cinematography and special effects, drawing parallels to their appreciation of Tarsem Singh's unique visual style in "The Fall."

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5. Deep Dive into 'The Fall' (2006)

Following their enjoyable movie outing, the hosts transition to an in-depth analysis of "The Fall," a 2006 film directed by Tarsem Singh.

a. Tarsem Singh’s Advertising Influence

Jen and Caroline explore Tarsem Singh's background in advertising and how it permeates the film's aesthetic, making each scene feel like a meticulously crafted advertisement.

• Jen Cownie: "Almost every scene in this film could be an advertisement." [14:11]
• Caroline: "Tarsem Singh is a genius and he is fucking crazy... he's seeing angles and colors that other people just aren't seeing." [14:25]

They discuss how Singh's experience with iconic adverts influences the film's visual storytelling, blending grandeur with surrealism.

b. Cinematography and Visual Style

The duo marvels at the film's cinematography, noting its maximalist approach and the seamless integration of fantastical elements.

• Caroline: "So Tarsem Singh, he is like every single person who's ever worked with this man. It's a genuine eccentric." [15:18]
• Jen Cownie: "The visual world here is a visual feast. Subtle emotion." [57:17]

They highlight specific scenes, such as the opening with the horse and the imaginative sequences that define Alexandria's perception versus Roy's storytelling.

c. Character Analysis – Alexandria and Roy

Caroline and Jen delve into the complexities of the main characters, Alexandria and Roy, examining their development and relationship dynamics.

• Caroline: "Alexandria has broken arms but is otherwise fine... she writes a note down for her nurse." [21:12]
• Jen Cownie: "Alexandria is a six-year-old with a determined spirit and a rich imagination." [25:38]

They discuss Roy's portrayal as a suicidal stuntman, his deep internal conflict, and the authenticity of his character's struggles.

• Jen Cownie: "A really rare example of a character who's very credibly suicidal... It was so real to me." [45:28]
• Caroline: "He's like, he's sort of a stuntman who jumped off a bridge onto a horse." [46:42]

d. Themes of Storytelling and Ownership

The conversation touches on the film's exploration of storytelling, emphasizing the collaborative yet contested nature of the narratives between Alexandria and Roy.

• Jen Cownie: "The story that he's telling her is not like pamphlet... it's been stress-tested by time." [28:07]
• Caroline: "He says, it's my story. And she goes, it's mine too." [55:27]

They analyze the metatextual elements, discussing how the film portrays the intersection of reality and imagination, and the emotional weight carried by shared stories.

e. Emotional Impact and Open-Ended Conclusion

Caroline and Jen reflect on the film's emotional resonance, particularly the ambiguous ending that leaves Roy's fate uncertain, fostering hope through Alexandria's perspective.

• Jen Cownie: "She gives him a happy ending, even if he didn't get one for himself in real life." [75:47]
• Caroline: "Everyone in that hospital thought it would be better." [55:12]

They appreciate the film's ability to evoke a spectrum of emotions, blending heartbreak with a subtle sense of optimism.

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6. Visual and Costuming Excellence

The hosts commend the film's costuming and visual elements, noting the deliberate choices that enhance character identities and the overall aesthetic.

• Jen Cownie: "Costuming in this film is so good... Charles Darwin wearing a giant butterfly Muppet coat." [57:34]
• Caroline: "The naked mystic who lives in a tree... is very hot in a different way." [61:30]

They discuss the strategic use of nudity and elaborate costumes, linking them to the film's fairy tale-like narrative and symbolic undertones.

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7. Concluding Thoughts on 'The Fall'

Caroline and Jen wrap up their discussion by reaffirming their admiration for "The Fall," praising its unique blend of visual splendor, emotional depth, and storytelling prowess.

• Jen Cownie: "It's a really powerful choice by the director to not specify either way and to leave that hope." [76:59]
• Caroline: "It's called the Fall... Maybe it could be a fall from innocence, or it's about how people get back up from them." [80:07]

They express a desire for more films that embrace such creative freedom and emotional complexity, concluding the episode with a heartfelt endorsement of the film.

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8. Closing Remarks

The episode concludes with light-hearted banter about nudity and personal anecdotes, maintaining the show's signature blend of deep analysis and personal connection.

• Caroline: "We think that being naked with your friend in a non-sexual environment is the most important thing you can do for your mental health." [62:01]
• Jen Cownie: "People are more scared of us than we are of them." [66:16]

They encourage listeners to embrace vulnerability and authenticity, subtly tying back to the episode's central themes of storytelling and emotional honesty.

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Notable Quotes:

• "The stuff that goes catastrophically badly is the stuff that you'll remember the most fondly of all." – Caroline [00:59]
• "Almost every scene in this film could be an advertisement." – Jen Cownie [14:11]
• "A really rare example of a character who's very credibly suicidal... It was so real to me." – Jen Cownie [45:28]
• "She gives him a happy ending, even if he didn't get one for himself in real life." – Jen Cownie [75:47]

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Conclusion:

In this episode of Sentimental Garbage, Caroline and Jen Cownie offer a heartfelt and insightful exploration of "The Fall" (2006). They adeptly intertwine personal narratives with film analysis, providing listeners with a rich understanding of the movie's artistic brilliance and emotional depth. By highlighting Tarsem Singh's unique influence and delving into the characters' psyches, the hosts create an engaging and comprehensive summary that resonates even with those unfamiliar with the film.

Transcript

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[Caroline]

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[Caroline]

So I'm coming up to my two year wedding anniversary, which as it turns out, is the exact amount of time it takes to become extremely nostalgic about everything, even the stuff that went wrong, which is a good sort of reminder to anyone who's getting married soon or getting married this summer that like, actually the stuff that goes catastrophically badly is the stuff that you'll remember the most fondly of all. Like, for example, my musicians didn't show up, my ceremony musicians didn't show up. And it was so cataclysmic because I had imagined exactly how I wanted to walk down the aisle, exactly how I wanted to feel. And the musicians were supposed to play kind of on the patio of the venue afterwards while everyone was getting drinks. And I was just like, oh my God, I'm gonna walk down the aisle to nothing. And then everyone will just be like wandering around this patio for afterwards with like no music and no vibe. And it was so awful. And then at that moment, one of my oldest friends, Harry Harris, he just revealed that he taught himself how to play piano over Covid. And he sat down at this big grand piano at the venue and just played, played all my favorite songs, played some songs that we'd written together. And it was like one of the most special moments of my entire day. So I was talking about this exact thing with my friend Haam, who got married three years ago, and him and his wife Rowan, they were still students at time, but they decided that they were going to get married. But then take the photos at this beautiful scenic place near where they live. And they got There, and it started raining. And at first they were like, okay, this is, like a cinematic, cute amount of rain. And then eventually it just got so intense that they had to abandon it all completely, and it was just a complete disaster. But Haam told me he was like, weirdly, that's my favorite part of my wedding, because it just felt so cute and special and just like it was the two of them. Now, Haam is from Gaza, and he has no access to any of the photographs that he took on his wedding day, because a few days into the war, his home was destroyed. Five days into the war, his daughter Karaz was born. And ever since then, the entire story of this little family who got caught in the rain on their wedding day has just been totally about surviving day to day, getting enough food, and, like, making sure that Karaz has basically any happy memories from the earlier parts of her life. Now Rowan is pregnant again, and they're trying desperately to fund their very existence as this war continues on. I'm going to include the link to Haytham's GoFundMe in the episode notes for this show, and I really hope that you can find it in your heart to give them a few quid and contribute to this little family and their ability to survive. Okay, thank you. Enjoy the show. Hello, and welcome to Magical Garbage, the podcast where we manipulate children to get morphine for us. My name is Caroline, and I'm the suicidal stuntman with great hair. And joining me is the naked mystic who lives in a tree. It's Jen Coney. Never has a description never been so accurate. Right, you are the naked mystic who lives in a tree. Who lives in a tree.

[Jen Coney]

I actually. That's really on the. That's really on brand.

[Caroline]

Yeah, it's a literal on brand, and it's a kind of a spiritual on brand as well. Yeah, I know. We're not doing continental garbage. And this isn't like a. Like a postcard. Like last summer, we did postcards that were about 30 minutes long, just updating people on how our summer was going. But for some reason, something about being in the summertime makes me want to tell everyone how my summer is going.

[Jen Coney]

You feel moved. You feel moved to send a postcard? A little surprise postcard.

[Caroline]

Exactly.

[Jen Coney]

I like that when it happens, and I like when that happens.

[Caroline]

Yeah.

[Jen Coney]

And you just look at your post box, and there's just a little card from a friend. You didn't even know they were on holiday.

[Caroline]

Got one the other day from Dali.

[Jen Coney]

Really?

[Caroline]

She was in Hydra. Had no idea where the Hell's that? Greece.

[Jen Coney]

Okay. Photography is not my strong point. It could be anywhere.

[Caroline]

But we also. We have updates. Or you have updates. Really?

[Jen Coney]

We have updates. You, me, us.

[Caroline]

And the update is, is that. Well, last time we spoke, we were in Portugal. We were on holidays. We just watched Shrek. This episode this week is part. Is the third part in our trilogy on fairy tale stories. But like, some major changes have happened since then.

[Jen Coney]

Major changes have happened since then, actually, for both of us. And that's that both of us now have homes to live in.

[Caroline]

Yeah.

[Jen Coney]

Which had not been the case for some time, really.

[Caroline]

It was really bad. So I'm aware of our unbelievably privilege as it's gonna sound, but I bought a house two years ago, spent all my money doing that and then ran out of money and had to wait for it to recoup before I could do anything to that house. It's a Victorian property. Everything had to be done.

[Jen Coney]

A lot of stuff. A lot of stuff.

[Caroline]

So I was living out of my house for about two months and for some of that two months, me and Gav and Sylph were living with you.

[Jen Coney]

They were.

[Caroline]

And now I'm back in my house again and it's just lovely.

[Jen Coney]

You are back in your house again and it is just lovely. And obviously it was so nice to be like little housemates for a few weeks. But it is fair to say that the place that we were living was not really made for three adult humans and a terrier. So it is nice to be back. And I've now moved. I moved house, which meant I briefly lived in your flat when there were also builders there.

[Caroline]

Yeah. So really we had like a two month thing. It's very strange. It was like being back on holidays when we were interrailing again. Because two months of us just living out of backpacks in each other's homes was like the hostels were our homes essentially.

[Jen Coney]

But it was. Instead it would be just like, oh, I'm in Caroline and Gav's kitchen, sleeping on an air bed in their unfinished living room. Sylvie's having the time of her life because everyone is in one place at once and she doesn't know. But yeah, I've now moved to the same area as you. We live about a 15 minute walk.

[Caroline]

It's so nice. I walked over here today and the walk was so short, I didn't even bother with my headphones in.

[Jen Coney]

No way.

[Caroline]

And I love putting my headphones in. It's my favorite. My favorite hobby is headphones. My only hobby oh, come. You've got many hobbies with my favorite hobbies.

[Jen Coney]

And that felt very important that you didn't even put them in. Not even this one time. And last night we went to see a film at our local cinema.

[Caroline]

Yeah. Yeah, we did. We went to see Jurassic World Rebirth. It was so great. We're not doing a podcast on it.

[Jen Coney]

But it was so good.

[Caroline]

It was so good. It was so good that I couldn't get to sleep until 3am so because I was so overstimulated, I just.

[Jen Coney]

It was just everything that I dreamed it would be. And look, I feel quite proud because I think I had to sell you quite hard on it. Gavin, he was in.

[Caroline]

Absolutely.

[Jen Coney]

Gavin was like. The second I said, even before I finished saying Jurassic World Rebirth, I had him on jeu. You know, he was like, dinosaurs. I'm there. You were like. And it was. It was phenomenal.

[Caroline]

Do you know what? I know we're not talking about dinosaurs this week, but they are. They do fall under the headline with magical garbage. Absolutely. I think it's because. I think this is what. Because you and Gavin are the same age, which is four years older than me. And so when, for me, when Jurassic park came out, I was too young. It was too scary. There was absolutely no way anyone was gonna let me into a cinema to watch that. And so, like, I just missed the whole phenomenon. And like, when it came back with Chris Pratt, I was like, absolutely not. And then suddenly it was so strange. It was like I lived in a Jurassic park neutral world for so long. And in the last week, suddenly everyone's coming up to me being like, when we see you in Jurassic World, Rebirth. I was like, since when do we care? And I was like, okay. I mean, I'd like a group event. And we all went. Me, you, and Gav, and our other friend Jen. Now we have two Jen's in the neighborhood. Very pleasing.

[Jen Coney]

Yes.

[Caroline]

And it was just the best time ever. Made even better by the fact that you just showed up 15 minutes late. Wasted.

[Jen Coney]

I did.

[Caroline]

I've never seen someone so wasted in a cinema. It was so funny.

[Jen Coney]

Just rolling on in there.

[Caroline]

It was so funny.

[Jen Coney]

Yeah. I really thought I was gonna fall asleep because I was very day drunk, having gone to. I went to a. This is gonna sound so wanky. This is a wank station Central. Today I went to a natural wine fair in Deptford where you just get given a little glass and then you walk around and people give you little tiny tasters of wine and they have spittoons. But I Think spittoons are gross and rude. I don't want to spit out someone's wine.

[Caroline]

Also, grow up. Don't be a baby. You can swallow the little bit of wine.

[Jen Coney]

15, 20 mil. And I was like, oh, swallow the wine. Delicious, delicious. And then I obviously was seeing you guys at sort of 7,8ish, and I was suddenly on my way there. Like, I'm absolutely battered because I've had like 35 tiny wines, which adds up to probably a bottle of wine on a Sunday. So, yeah, I just like rolled on in there and I don't know what it was about me that was so obvious.

[Caroline]

It was so fun. I think there's something about it that just. I'm sure it wasn't fun to sit behind us, but there's something.

[Jen Coney]

We had such a nice time.

[Caroline]

One person being wasted. I think other gen is a real vocal cinema enjoyer as well. And it just evoked all of us to be just hooting and hollering at the screen, having a great time. We were oohing, we were aahing. We were like a focus group sort of wet dream, really. It's like if anyone wanted to test a movie out on us in that particular moment, it's like, yeah, we're clapping, we're gasping, we're in fear. My favorite thing about the movie is, apart from everything, I mean, I loved seeing Scarlett Johansson entering her Lara Croft era at the tender age of like, 40. I mean, that's lovely to me.

[Jen Coney]

I think seeing Jonathan Bailey quickly becoming my favourite person to be in film or theater. We saw him in the theatre and great to see him again in Jurassic park, doing a phenomenal job.

[Caroline]

Oh, my God. The prompt for his character in Jurassic World Rebirth was. So you're Billy Zane in Titanic, but you've got a big briefcase. It was very. I have a child coded. Do you know what I mean?

[Jen Coney]

Oh, it was perfect. And listen, I just. I'm so glad we saw that film. I think it's a really good start to my time here in southeast London.

[Caroline]

Yeah. Film.

[Jen Coney]

Bit too drunk to go to a film, but went anyway.

[Caroline]

I know. I went home and while I couldn't sleep, I started just Googling Picture House Central and Picture House, sort of like memberships.

[Jen Coney]

Yes. I've been remembering.

[Caroline]

Maybe we should do that.

[Jen Coney]

I think their Mondays are excellent.

[Caroline]

Yeah. Can I tell you my other favorite thing about Jurassic park before we move on?

[Jen Coney]

Yeah, of course.

[Caroline]

I'm not very familiar with this franchise, as I said, so I was kind of under the impression that, like, people died from dino related deaths in Jurassic park franchise. But like, that could mean that like a big T. Rex stamped on your car. Or that could mean that, like, you know something, its tail thrashed you against a wall and you just got splattered there. I really liked that 100% of the deaths in Jurassic park were from chomping and chomping related deaths. Everyone got chomped.

[Jen Coney]

Absolutely.

[Caroline]

Everyone got chomped.

[Jen Coney]

Full chomp, wasn't it?

[Caroline]

Chomp, chomp, chomp, chomp, chomp.

[Jen Coney]

Wall to wall chomp. And that actually is quite a nice, like, thread that brings us back almost to Hook. At the beginning of the year, we saw Hook getting chomped.

[Caroline]

Just watching someone get eaten is so funny. Especially when it's in one fell, like, and when you see the trachea of the animal who's eating, swallowing.

[Jen Coney]

So funny. A dragon eating Lord Farquaad and Shrek.

[Caroline]

So good.

[Jen Coney]

We have got a. We are fond of a chomp in this movie.

[Caroline]

We like it. One might call it a fetish.

[Jen Coney]

Can I even watch a film? Can I even really enjoy a film if it hasn't got a good chomp in it? I think there's also something just really nice about the way that they're chomped whole.

[Caroline]

Yeah.

[Jen Coney]

Like if someone's like, chomped in half, that would be like gruesome, bloody. Ew, gross. You'd feel the pain. Chomped whole. Just gone.

[Caroline]

When that English guy chomped off the side of a boat. So good.

[Jen Coney]

And that little man with his shirt with his nips, he got chomped.

[Caroline]

Oh, I missed the pot postcards. This is good.

[Jen Coney]

This is good. You suddenly get a little bonus episode about a completely separate film and you needed it.

[Caroline]

Should we start talking about the Fall? Because I just realized that, like, when I. When I we first talked about this podcast. When we first talked about this movie on the podcast a few weeks ago, I was inundated with messages and comments and everything. People been like, please talk about the Fall. It's my favorite movie ever and I never get to hear about it because not that many people have seen it. It's not that well known. And now we're just here talking about.

[Jen Coney]

Chomping and there's no chomping in the fall, I guess.

[Caroline]

I don't think so, but I'm sorry.

[Jen Coney]

Which is a real shame. But it's one of the only things that's bad about the Fall is the lack of people being eaten whole by giant reptiles.

[Caroline]

Yeah. So to begin with, the Fall.

[Jen Coney]

To begin with The Fall.

[Caroline]

You had never seen this movie before. I would love to know about your expectations and what you thought of it and everything.

[Jen Coney]

I had no expectations other than what you told me, which is that it involved a sick child. And I knew it was kind of fantastical. And then when it opened with that very, like, artsy credits scene.

[Caroline]

Yes. Of a horse being sort of lifted out of a water or bridge.

[Jen Coney]

It was all black and white. I was like, oh, no, it looks like a Guinness ad. It does look like a Guinness ad. I was like, oh, my God.

[Caroline]

That's exactly what it looks like.

[Jen Coney]

That's what he does. The horses. That one. Like that.

[Caroline]

Yeah, yeah. And I remember saying to you, I was like, honestly, it's not all this. I know this is a real bummer right now.

[Jen Coney]

It's a harsh toke.

[Caroline]

It's a harsh toke right now, but it won't be this for very long. But it's interesting that you lighted on the advertising thing because. On the Guinness ad, because that is one of the very famous things about this movie is that it was made by somebody who has made Tar. Sam Singh is the name of the director who has made some of the most iconic adverts of all time.

[Jen Coney]

He has. We did go on a bit of a Wikipedia deep dive on him after this. Yeah. As someone who works in advertising, I was just like, whoa, he did that one and that one. And you can like, you can really see it in this film. I mean, I'm sure we'll talk more about the cinematography later, but yeah, it is. There's so much. Almost every scene in this film could be an advertisement.

[Caroline]

Yes. And it really made me think as well that like, so Tarsem Singh, he is like every single person who's ever worked with this man. And I've done some digging, has been like, this man is a genius and he is fucking crazy. But everyone says it in a kind of a wholesome way being like, this man is like a genuine eccentric. He's on a whole other level. Like, he's seeing angles and colors that other people just aren't seeing. And like, I think that's obviously very. You can see the evidence of that in this movie and you can see the evidence of advertising in this movie. But it really made me think of like, he, you know, he went to sort of school with like, you know, David Fincher and Michael Bay and all these people. He was in their kind of graduating class and he went down the advertising route and, you know, was one of the people who kind of made Advertising Filmic, right?

[Jen Coney]

Yeah, definitely.

[Caroline]

And it really made me think of, like, it's so interesting when advertising becomes more like film and then when we watch a film, it reminds us of an ad when really what the thing was trying to do was that like the ad was trying to remind us of a film. Do you know what I mean? That kind of circular thing.

[Jen Coney]

Yeah, yeah, I suppose so. And I suppose it's probably. I don't think it's a coincidence that a lot of people who make adverts, as in he directs adverts, he's not working in the sort of agency side, are people who are filmmakers, who needs some money and so they make adverts. Like, that's. I wish I could be like less honest than that, but I think a lot of the time when you're going out and pushing and, you know, going to directors for treatments, there are people who are filmmakers and advertising is like a thing they do as well. And so there is a kind of natural conversation between advertising and the film industry because the same people are making both a lot of the time. Unless you are such a successful director that you don't need to, because every film you want to make is getting greenlit and producers are lining up at your door to give you scripts, you're going to be like, I'm doing my film and then I'm doing six adverts. Yeah, I'm doing another film and then I'm doing six adverts.

[Caroline]

It's so interesting that you say that, because it is. You're right. That isn't unbelievably common unless you're in the kind of very, very 1% of very privileged directors. But yet, like, it's so interesting. This movie came out in 2006 and when you look up articles about it or featurettes about it or whatever, the advertising part of Tarsem Singh's life is so covered and it's so like touched on and referenced and we're even touching on referencing it now and we haven't even gotten to the part of the movie yet. It's interesting that, like, that conversation doesn't come up for other directors so much, but for this, I think because it's such a cult movie and people have pored over it so much, people talk about a lot.

[Jen Coney]

I wonder if. And again, I don't know enough if. It's two things. One is that he has made some really iconic adverts.

[Caroline]

Yeah.

[Jen Coney]

And quite a lot of the time the adverts that filmmakers are making are like. And I Just rattled something off for a bank.

[Caroline]

Yeah, blah, blah, blah.

[Jen Coney]

But he made the Gladiator one.

[Caroline]

Oh, my God.

[Jen Coney]

And Britney and Beyonce.

[Caroline]

The fucking. A work of geniusian response I had to. What? You were like, you know the Gladiator? I was like, no, no idea. And then you put it on and it was like the entire year of being 10 came back to me in one sense with We Will Rock youk. Yeah, yeah.

[Jen Coney]

Ignitius as the Roman emperor. There's all kinds of madness. They're making the whole stadium joke just to get a can of Pepsi.

[Caroline]

Beyonce, Britney and Pink are like in the underground sort of cellars or whatever, and they're hearing the crowd and like, what's so weird about that advert is that Enrique Iglesias plays Caesar.

[Jen Coney]

And why not?

[Caroline]

It was like. I know Enrique was famous around this time, but to position him as Caesar in this context feels to me very strange.

[Jen Coney]

But as you say, he's shooting for a mark that only he can see. And I think if you make an ad like that, people are going to mention. And I like that. I like when someone's adding that joy to their craft and to their art.

[Caroline]

You're so right. Because the reason why those adverts worked is because they were fun and they were funny.

[Jen Coney]

They're fun and funny, and people who aren't enjoying what they're doing don't make fun and funny adverts.

[Caroline]

And you know what all adverts are now? They're just like. I mean, because we're, you know, we watch things on streaming, so you get the same three or four adverts. It's either. It's like, impress your kids is what literally every advert is for a car. And it's like, Dad's driving around, picks up his son. Wow, dad, this car is so quiet. Thanks. It's a Volvo. You can charge your iPad off the back seat. Wow, Dad, I love you. But like, this, this, this movie, I think as well, why the advertising thing comes up a lot is because it was famously made kind of piecemeal over many years. And I think the kind of legend of it is that, like, he had this kind of idea and he was sort of. He would be on location for adverts and would just sort of like, scrimp a few days using his own money. But he'd be like, well, I've. I've basically written a treatment for this ad to be, you know, conveniently in Delhi.

[Jen Coney]

Exactly. Or city I need to be in for my film. And the client's like, sure. Off we go.

[Caroline]

Yeah. And then he's like, well, now I'm here, I guess I'll get my guys.

[Jen Coney]

In, just ask you to fly me back a few days later. No worries. I'm just having a little holiday. Definitely not filming a whole film. Love that.

[Caroline]

It's so cool.

[Jen Coney]

It's really cool. I think I've never met him, but if I did, I'd be like, massive respect to that guy.

[Caroline]

Even though I'm saying he's like, he's like in his 50s or 60s at this point now. But like he is in many ways the ultimate sort of millennial poster boy for like side hustling and just slightly screwing over the client. But not so much that you burn bridges. Like, this is how you do it.

[Jen Coney]

Totally Emma Gammon.

[Caroline]

This is multi hyphen method.

[Jen Coney]

This is the multi hyphen method. This is the patchwork portfolio career.

[Caroline]

Yeah. It's very inspiring.

[Jen Coney]

Imagine your side hustle is making blockbuster movies. Why is it blockbuster?

[Caroline]

Well, that's the thing.

[Jen Coney]

Imagine your side hustle is making beloved movies. Beloved movies, yeah. Fantastic.

[Caroline]

So this movie is so beloved. And it was like, I can see why.

[Jen Coney]

I haven't just gone in with the reminds of adverts.

[Caroline]

Yeah, yeah.

[Jen Coney]

So I love it now too.

[Caroline]

You thought this movie was going to be a Guinness advert. You were a little bit reluctant. But then we quickly moved from the Guinness advert into a hospital in California in the 1910s.

[Jen Coney]

Yes.

[Caroline]

And at what point did you think like, oh, no, this is a movie for me.

[Jen Coney]

I think it's the moment when Alexandria little girl appears with her arm in that weird little cast which has to.

[Caroline]

Hold at a complete right angle for the entire film.

[Jen Coney]

She must have been so uncomfortable holding a little book and she just pops off in a little.

[Caroline]

It's not a little book, it's her little box.

[Jen Coney]

Yeah, sorry, her little box. Her box. And she's just pootling around at that point I was like, oh, okay. I think she writes a note to the nurse about throwing oranges at the priest. And by that I mean literally, I was so in from within those first few minutes.

[Caroline]

It's so lovely. It's so perfect. And it's that beautiful thing where it's like that. It's like that snowflake paper.

[Jen Coney]

Yeah, it's like little cut out bits in it.

[Caroline]

Yes, exactly. And so she's written about how she's. Yeah, because the sort of nurse in this is kind of her other big. She's like two big crushes in this movie. Her nurse who's her friend, and Lee Pace, who plays Roy, who'll get to in a second, but. So she throws the note down for her nurse because she's so lonely and so bored. And this children's ward is so horrible.

[Jen Coney]

Depressing. The Taco Tongue coughing straight off the bat. Me and Joe's favorite thing in the.

[Caroline]

World is identifying taco tongue, which is when children who don't know how to be self conscious yet, they cough with their tongue in a kind of a usual. In the little roll.

[Jen Coney]

And look, I just think whenever I see it, it's weird that whenever I see a child doing that in real life or in film, I think of you.

[Caroline]

Nothing makes us laugh as a two hour than taco Tongue.

[Jen Coney]

It's a real. Like, if you were to make a pyramid of our friendship and like the jokes and things that buzzed me over the years, Taco tongue was right there at the foundation. So it's one of the keystones of our friendship was laughing at pictures of kids who do that cough and trying to get. Trying to get pictures like that into PowerPoint presentations for our advertising job and constantly being told, you can't do that, and being like, well, what if we did.

[Caroline]

For. Yeah, me and Jen met working on a cold and flu brand, which is why we were looking at Tackle Tongue pictures.

[Jen Coney]

But I suppose the second I heard that sacred tongue cough, I thought, ah, it's a film for me and therefore for Caroline.

[Caroline]

Yeah.

[Jen Coney]

It'S just. But it's such a depressing, sad setting. Even though it's California. There's nothing more sad and depressing than a children's hospital. Like, hospitals are bad, but children in hospital, so much worse.

[Caroline]

So much worse. And it's also, you get the idea that these are kids who are just like the interesting thing of, like, these kids are unwell, maybe even badly unwell. Whereas like Alexandria, she's got broken arms.

[Jen Coney]

She'S so bored, you know, she's just done something silly.

[Caroline]

She's otherwise fine. Yeah, yeah.

[Jen Coney]

And she's so bored. And then she goes and she meets Roy and it's when she starts speaking as well. You're just like, wow, how did they cast this child?

[Caroline]

Well, apparently it's like they had all so many of the other kind of fantasy sequences already done. And Tarsem Singh was just waiting until he found his girl and he just like interviewed little girls all over the world until he found her.

[Jen Coney]

Like Cinderella.

[Caroline]

Like literally Cinderella.

[Jen Coney]

Real fairy story behind a fairy story.

[Caroline]

She is perfect.

[Jen Coney]

She is perfect.

[Caroline]

And it's so rare. I Want to see a child for that long in a movie ever. Like, the reason that the Princess Bride works is that you see Fred Savage for a total of six. Six minutes. You know, it's like.

[Jen Coney]

I think maybe there was. Maybe I first had a little nervous is when I was like, oh, she's a real main character. But it goes very quickly because, you know, she's incredible. I think it's when she asks, possibly it's the second thing she asks Roy is how he goes to the toilet.

[Caroline]

Yeah.

[Jen Coney]

And he's just like, in the bed. And she's like, in the bed. I don't believe.

[Caroline]

I don't believe.

[Jen Coney]

I don't believe. Her little, kind of like perfectly, like clipped little delivery. Yeah. So I don't think I've ever heard any child speak like that. And I'm sad.

[Caroline]

It's so perfect. And you have this, like such perfect kind of total sense of who she is as a whole character. Not just as a child, but as a whole character. Like so early on, because it's like, you know, she's speaking in her second language. She's like this determined, bulchy little kid, and she's very. But kind of that thing of like, she's only six years old, but she's already very eldest daughter. She's already very, like, you know, I'm responsible for things. I have jobs, I have a history. I have stuff.

[Jen Coney]

Stuff to do.

[Caroline]

Don't get. Yeah, she has jobs, she has things, you know.

[Jen Coney]

Yeah. She's always. She's on a little project. She's got much like Tasem Singh himself. She's got a thing in her mind that she's gonna do. And even if it's completely inscrutable to anyone else, it makes total sense to her.

[Caroline]

So, so interesting that you just say that because you know how she's got her little box of treasures, which is so beautifully observed and so childlike awareness.

[Jen Coney]

It's so true of children.

[Caroline]

It's so. It's just so true. Exactly. And like, I was watching a retrospective interview with the beautiful Lee Pace, who we'll get to.

[Jen Coney]

We'll get to him.

[Caroline]

But he talked about how when Tarsem Singh was pitching him this movie and he was like. And just so you know, Tarsem's insane. He's mental.

[Jen Coney]

He's great, but he's insane.

[Caroline]

He's insane. And he said he has a little box that he had, like these little. He was telling him the story, but he was taking out little trinkets from his little box as he was saying so it's like, it's just so nice. It's just so nice.

[Jen Coney]

Ah, this is fantastic.

[Caroline]

If Tarsem Singh has one fan, it's me.

[Jen Coney]

And if he has two, it's Mia also. And he does, he does have two.

[Caroline]

Fans because zero fans were dead.

[Jen Coney]

It's just there are many other fans.

[Caroline]

I'm sure there are so many. I don't think we're the first people.

[Jen Coney]

To discover Tara based on both your inbox and the Internet, but this felt like a discovery. I don't even know when the song was made, like what, 2000?

[Caroline]

It came out in 2006, but it was being made for a long time.

[Jen Coney]

It does not feel that old again. It's like Lord of the Rings. It feels like it could have been made two years ago and I'd believe it.

[Caroline]

And yeah, so it completely sort of flopped when it came out.

[Jen Coney]

They weren't ready for it.

[Caroline]

Yeah, they weren't ready for it. Nobody knew what it was, you know, and like, and I understand how you could go to the cinema and not be briefed and just sort of be like, what? Like, I'm sure like very well meaning critics were just like, this is a very charming performance from this child and she's very lovable and Lee Pace is very winning. But like these kind of these dream sequences and these, you know, very perfume advert kind of like cutaways to fantasy settings. They are. It's not the Princess Bride in that. It's not like this perfectly linear story with lots of archetypes and plot movements that are very familiar and they're comfortable because they're familiar. I think what's really important is that the story that he's telling her is not like, now this is the story that my father told me and you're gonna love it. And it's like been stress tested by time. It's like, I am making this up because I am suicidal and I need you to get morphine for me so I can kill myself. He like, is not paying close attention to the details and that makes it. I mean, it's the Princess Bride for depressed people.

[Jen Coney]

It is the Princess Bride for depressed people. And I think that, I think that again, like we talked about this as being the third of our trilogy about fairy tale. And the point about fairy tales is you can just make them up. Like, you don't. There's not like a set number that you're like, well, this is number 206 of fairy tales.

[Caroline]

Yeah.

[Jen Coney]

And you got to do it this way. Like you were allowed to be silly with it and you're allowed to make things and I suppose.

[Caroline]

And also you're allowed to be manipulative about it, because that's what they've been for. It's been, you know, a way to get kids to, like, not go outside or not, like, play, stray too far. Like, it's like, don't stray into the woods. A witch lives there. Like, it's always been a way to control children and pain them. Exactly.

[Jen Coney]

This is part of the tradition, is that sometimes it's like, it's a warning or it's a sort of a way of saying, don't do this or do. Do this, or this is what happens to kids who do this or women who do this.

[Caroline]

Like, Elf on the fucking Shelf.

[Jen Coney]

I mean, a new tradition, a creepy new one. But again, like, I think what's also nice is it's such a magpie art. And you see that with Roy's character because he's taking a lot of stuff from, like, stuff he knew from school, like history, but he's also just stealing stuff directly from the film. He was just a man in. Because he wants to sit there and tell a story, but he doesn't want to make too much effort. So he's just sort of reciting a film script in some ways, like. And look, I've been there. I definitely remember babysitting a kid in my teens. And she would not sleep. And I had exhausted all the books I could think of. So then I just recited the entire plot of Spirited Away to her for about two hours and made as though it was a story that I had made up. She was so impressed.

[Caroline]

I'm sure I would have been wrapped.

[Jen Coney]

But imagine a few years later, she finally sees it and is like, that is fucking mid. This was not original work by Jen.

[Caroline]

County.

[Jen Coney]

But you do. Sometimes you're just like, oh, I need to tell a story, but I can't. I haven't got one in me, so I'm just gonna pull from something else. And he plays with it and then. But what's so wonderful about this film? And I think it. The Princess Bride does it a little bit. This does it perfectly. Is it really wants to explore, like, the way in which stories are grown between two people. The version that he's telling and the version that she's hearing are quite different. And it's done so cleverly and beautifully throughout this film that I just. I've made my heart, like, sing every single time.

[Caroline]

He.

[Jen Coney]

When he tells quite early on, he sets up One of his characters as being an Indian. And he is obviously meaning in the sort of American sense, Wild west sense.

[Caroline]

Yeah. And he says words like teepee and squaw, like he's borrowing from that tradition.

[Jen Coney]

He's borrowing from that probably from the film he was in.

[Caroline]

Yeah.

[Jen Coney]

And then Alexandria has got a friend who's Indian, as in India, as in the subcontinent of Asia, India. And so she just immediately imagines this incredible, beautiful, full kind of scene set in India, like in sort of Rajasthan. And just seeing the way that her imagination plays out so differently to what he's saying. And it's not just he doesn't own the story, she also holds it, grows it. And I think her imagination has far greater scope than his or than anyone else in this film.

[Caroline]

That's just giving me a little shiver. It is so beautiful in that, like, that. It also reminds me of like the ways in which like children protects themselves from content, even self reflexively. Like. Ella was on the podcast talking about Northern Lights a few weeks ago and she talked about, she read Atonement when she was way too young. Because Atonement starts with being about a 10 year old girl and she's like, then this is for me. And the rape scene in that. No, sorry, not the rape scene. It's mistaken for a rape, but it's actually consenting. She said she sort of, she felt herself glaze past it because she kind of knew it wasn't ready for it.

[Jen Coney]

It's very much a thing kids do. We're just like, nope, not for my.

[Caroline]

Eyes, not for me now. Yeah, it's like self centered, don't get it and I don't want to go near it again.

[Jen Coney]

And then you read the same thing years later and you're like, why would my mom give me this when I was 10?

[Caroline]

Totally, totally.

[Jen Coney]

That's a weird choice.

[Caroline]

It's like fascinating. Like children do have this weird self instinct to protect and like the. There's this moment later on in the story when like Roy's, you know, mental health is suffering and declining and the story is getting far, far darker and he talks about like how all these soldiers have been hung and like that's a horrible thing to say to a fucking six year old. And then the way she's picturing it is this sort of like beautiful acrobatic thing where these. Yeah. People are hanging out.

[Jen Coney]

It's like a chandelier.

[Caroline]

Like a chandelier. Like a human chandelier of these dancers in the air. And something that is so clever, I think about this. And so intentional and beautiful is that like this is set, you know, it doesn't say a specific year, but something like, I would say late 1910s, early 1920s and the dawn of cinema. And it's established that like Roy is a stuntman who has sustained an accident in that opening, Guinness advertising and the. And has also had like his, his girlfriend stolen from him.

[Jen Coney]

From a little rat faced leading man.

[Caroline]

Yes, rat faced leading man. So it's like a double insult.

[Jen Coney]

Yeah.

[Caroline]

And so he's like, he's a movies guy. He's of the movies. But Alexandria, she's an immigrant child who works on an orange grove with her family and she has never seen a film.

[Jen Coney]

Yes.

[Caroline]

And so like, it's so interesting because, like, we all live, even if we're not film fans, just like living in the culture, living in a world of like billboards and magazines and just media all around us all the time. We all pick up like a biography of references. Even like, like most, most kids won't really have watched a John Wayne western, but they'll know what that means because of like the translation of media and like things being photocopied. But like Alexandria as a listener and as a character, she hasn't experienced kind of any media.

[Jen Coney]

She's probably only experienced fairy tale and story.

[Caroline]

Yeah. And so the things she's imagining, they're like. It's like Tarasim saying he really wanted to capture places in the world that really hadn't been filmed that much before because he was like, I wanted to exist outside of genre because it exists only in this little girl's brain. And so it's important that she would never have seen it anywhere before, you know, in like a movie or something.

[Jen Coney]

You know, And I think that's what again, just makes her so spectacular as a character because she, you know, it's easy to think, oh, a child who's grown up on an orange farm and has never left the orange farm, has only ever seen her family and her neighbors and, you know, doesn't speak English, would have some kind of narrow little. Kind of, sort of. Yeah. A sort of shriveled little imagination. But she doesn't. It's so big and she's got so much color and beauty and I suppose very right at the end of the film, you finally see the film that Roy was paralyzed making. And it's just like, as all of those films were at that time, the dawn of cinema kind of crap to modernize black and white.

[Caroline]

And nothing compared to like what Alexandria has in her Brain.

[Jen Coney]

She's able to imagine and she's sort of watching it. And she's like, cool. But you can see that she's also, like, thought it'd be better.

[Caroline]

Everyone in that hospital is like, thought it would be better.

[Jen Coney]

In fact, someone even says that, don't.

[Caroline]

They became suicidal and lost your use of your legs for this. We really thought it would be better.

[Jen Coney]

And it's like, right, this is the. Okay. And again, I suppose there is almost a commentary there in the difference between what you're able to create physically and versus what you can imagine. And every person who is creating, whether they're writing or whether they're making film or theater, they are trying to somehow capture this thing which is uncapturable, which is their imagination, and commit it to a medium. And always that translation somehow slightly makes it worse. The idea is pure, and then the execution is always a sword in some way.

[Caroline]

Nothing's more perfect than the blank page.

[Jen Coney]

Exactly. But I think this is a film that says that without saying it in a really cliched, obvious way. Like, you kind of get it. You're like, oh, yeah. But in. I suppose, looking back at the end of that film, the opening Guinness advert.

[Caroline]

Yes.

[Jen Coney]

To my mind, is Roy's vision of the film that he was in because it's so epic and so it's still black and white, but it's.

[Caroline]

I never even thought. I've seen this movie, like, six times. I never thought of that.

[Jen Coney]

I think that's how he sees it in the opening scenes. It's, like, noble. And it's, like, extremely orchestral as well, and huge. And it's kind of something that's worth him having basically given up the use of his legs for somehow. Because he's trying at this point to justify this horrible accident he had. But he was doing it in pursuit of this great art.

[Caroline]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Jen Coney]

And then you actually.

[Caroline]

But it's just this rinky dink piece of chair. Yeah. But then also the thing that, like, the filmmaker has given his life. It's a kind of Russian nesting doll to the endless sacrifice of the idea we think we're making.

[Jen Coney]

Yeah. And then you're like. And, you know, it looks. Maybe to other people it doesn't always look that great, but to you, you're like, this is fucking sick. I'm so glad I did it.

[Caroline]

That's really nice.

[Jen Coney]

I think that's good.

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[Caroline]

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[Caroline]

Can we talk about like some of these line readings that we get from Alexandria early? Like when she's like. So he begins telling her a story about Alexander the Great and this little sort of proverb about him, you know, having one cup of water left for all of his men in the desert and he throws the water on the ground. And Alexandria is so annoyed by this and she's like no, he should just give everyone a little bit.

[Jen Coney]

I think every line. I would love to know how they scripted this because she must have been ad living for some of It.

[Caroline]

I don't know. So having watched that interview with Lee Pace again. The gorgeous Lee Pace.

[Jen Coney]

Oh, my God.

[Caroline]

If Hollywood were run by gay men and straight women every. We would have a million lead painters. But for some reason, we only have this one.

[Jen Coney]

And we must treasure him all the more because of it.

[Caroline]

He's not in enough things.

[Jen Coney]

He's not in enough things. Every time he is in a thing, he's spectacular. And as you said when we were watching this, no one wants Ryan Reynolds.

[Caroline]

I'm so sorry. But no one does want Ryan Reynolds.

[Jen Coney]

We want Lee Pace.

[Caroline]

I was actually thinking about Ryan Reynolds but yesterday because I was watching his new TV show, which is Disney show that he narrates called Underdogs, which is about like nature's weirdest animals. And it's actually really. It's really good. I really think you really enjoy it.

[Jen Coney]

Okay, maybe I'll try it.

[Caroline]

But we had a good time watching it. But there's something about Ryan Reynolds that's very millennial cringe. He is the most millennial cringe movie star of all of the movie stars. There's something very kind of mmm, bacon om nom nom about Ryan Reynolds.

[Jen Coney]

Too many cat memes have been. Have been sent through those fingers.

[Caroline]

Right. He was there at the dawn of Lolcats. And you can tell. Yes. You know, there's something so off puttingly om nom nom bacon about him.

[Jen Coney]

But he is exactly what I think.

[Caroline]

He's gonna be a lovely man.

[Jen Coney]

I'm sure he's lovely. We're never gonna hang out with him. I feel like he is, but it's fine. I think he's a straight man's idea of what women want.

[Caroline]

Yeah.

[Jen Coney]

And they're wrong.

[Caroline]

Yeah.

[Jen Coney]

Lee Pace is what we want. Who's also obviously really hot, but in a different way.

[Caroline]

Different.

[Jen Coney]

And just in a way that seems to have more. There's more depth. We talked about this not that long ago with Gavin. And it was the fact that most of the time when a man becomes famous, it makes him less attractive. It's my personal belief and yours.

[Caroline]

Yeah.

[Jen Coney]

And there are very few examples of men who are. Who remain very attractive once they become.

[Caroline]

If we can be toxic for a minute, let's.

[Jen Coney]

Let's.

[Caroline]

Something about fame and its pursuit that's very effeminate. Do you know what I mean? It's like I want everyone to look at me and take my picture and give me a brand deal. It's like that's not masculine.

[Jen Coney]

Oh, she's right. To the house celebrity Tell you what it is.

[Caroline]

And it's also. It's that thing. I always think about it, particularly vis a vis the Sex and the City movie, where it's, you know, there's nothing more unattractive than Smith Jarrett. When he becomes sort of famous and he's got a fussy little lifestyle and he has to go to the gym all the time and he has to be up at 5 to blah, blah, blah.

[Jen Coney]

He's got to be the exact right shade of orange.

[Caroline]

Yeah, exactly. There's something, I think partly Lee Pace's appeal is that he never became. Became extremely famous.

[Jen Coney]

Maybe. Although, you know, he was in the Hobbit and he was great there, too.

[Caroline]

He was, but you know what I mean.

[Jen Coney]

Yeah. No, you're right. He never. He never.

[Caroline]

He's not Detective Pikachu.

[Jen Coney]

But I.

[Caroline]

Unlike some people we could name.

[Jen Coney]

Unlike some people who are.

[Caroline]

Ryan Reynolds. Yeah.

[Jen Coney]

But do you think he just chose not to? I don't know. He's. I mean, he's astoundingly attractive in this film and also incredibly good at acting. Like, how rarely does those two things come in together? Quite often, if it's a really, really hot actor, you're like, oh, we'll have.

[Caroline]

To forgive him a delivery. It takes a lot to be jealous of a child.

[Jen Coney]

But when she is cozying up to.

[Caroline]

Him, when they are, like, in their little tent of secrets with story time, and it's like, I want to be her in my cozy little 1920s hospital tent with the man trying to manipulate me so I can get him drugged.

[Jen Coney]

I was so jealous of her.

[Caroline]

I was so jealous.

[Jen Coney]

What a lovely experience. And, like, what a lovely experience to look back on both the character and maybe even the real person. Because at that age, you don't really understand what hotness is either.

[Caroline]

No.

[Jen Coney]

I had a really hot babysitter when I was young, and I only realized it many years later when I was looking at, like, the kind of crappy little photos you take on your little first camera as a kid. I was like, who the fuck's this absolute fox? My mom was like, oh, yeah, you babysat, you remember?

[Caroline]

Crazy. Wild.

[Jen Coney]

This man could have been a male model. Insane. But you don't see it as a kid.

[Caroline]

And then it goes the other way, too. Do you know who my first crush was?

[Jen Coney]

Tell me.

[Caroline]

My Uncle Redmond.

[Jen Coney]

Oh, dear.

[Caroline]

A man who just looks kind of like my dad, but a bit older. And I was just like, the story in the family that, like, Michael Redmond told me on the day of my wedding was like, you used to follow me into the loo. I was like, I did Uncle Redmond. I remember when I used to.

[Jen Coney]

And thanks for mentioning it right now, Redmond. Oh, my God.

[Caroline]

Yeah.

[Jen Coney]

As a cage, you're understanding of what a hot man is. Is or woman, I assume completely off. So this character's character, Alexandria, she must one day have looked back in her mind and been like, holy shit, fucking hell.

[Caroline]

I was having little sleepovers with a fiddy my entire childhood. Entire broken arm time.

[Jen Coney]

What an absolute gift.

[Caroline]

Can we move on to like Roy as a character? Because we have talked about how fit he is.

[Jen Coney]

Yeah, I suppose that is for such a long time we are just objective. But look, I think sometimes it's nice to subjectify a really hot character just for. Just for a hot second.

[Caroline]

Just for a hot, hot second.

[Jen Coney]

But we're moving on. He is a phenomenal character again, because he's so believable. And you said earlier, and I'm going to say it back to you because I'm sure you've got more to say on it.

[Caroline]

Yeah.

[Jen Coney]

A really rare example, I think, of a character who's very credibly suicidal.

[Caroline]

Yes.

[Jen Coney]

Rather than just like, I'm gonna jump, or like some kind of like fast. I'm not a jump, I'm feeling well, blah, blah, blah. Like, he feels like, so real and so true. And again, there was no part of me that didn't believe that he was a suicidal character. It was the commitment to death that he had.

[Caroline]

It's so interesting because they have given him, you know, reasons to be suicidal. Right. Not that anyone who's suicidal or suffers from suicidal ideation needs like a big capital R reason. Some people just are.

[Jen Coney]

Yes. They've given him some triggers, I suppose they've given him.

[Caroline]

Exactly. Triggers. And they are that he has lost these of his legs and that he also has lost his girlfriend to the leading man. Which are like, you know, as good a trigger as any, I guess. But you also get this feeling about how this character is played that, like, I think something was in the post for that guy anyway. Do you know what I mean? Oh, that guy has a natural instinct for darkness that like he became a.

[Jen Coney]

Stuntman and jumped off a bridge onto a horse.

[Caroline]

Yeah, exactly.

[Jen Coney]

Again, to go Freudian. His, like, death drive is very high.

[Caroline]

Yeah, totally. Who does that? The dawn of cinema. Come on. There's no lawyers yet.

[Jen Coney]

That seems a good idea. I'll just fling my. I could probably do that. That's kind of all young men to a certain extent, but some Particularly more than others who really think they're immortal, but then. Or some who don't think they're immortal and just don't really care if they die. And that's how armies get made.

[Caroline]

There's some. I don't know what it is exactly or if he even comes across in one moment. But he is never deterred from his goal. Like in a lesser movie, it would be like. And he learns the glory of storytelling.

[Jen Coney]

And blah, blah, blah, blah. The pure love of a child.

[Caroline]

The pure love of a child. The pure love of a child does not heal him.

[Jen Coney]

It doesn't heal him. But I think what is good is that you see. You see kind of the internal wizard battle, you know, you see the Gandalf and the Saruman within him. And the pure lover child does not save him or heal him, but it does kind of push back the darkness a bit. And it kind of. I think that's some of the most moving scenes quite late in the film when he still wants to die, but he doesn't want her to be heard. And he's beginning to understand that his decision will have an impact on her. Yeah, very, very painful to watch.

[Caroline]

So the way it's kind of staged is. Is that he. He sort of gets her to break in to the dispensary. And it's so scary because, you know, it's also. It's like he's used this story, these kind of fits of derring do in order to be like, you can be brave, just like these characters kind of thing.

[Jen Coney]

Yes.

[Caroline]

She climbs up the top of the dispensary and it's just, no, no, no, no, no. And she gets the morphine down. And then first it's like she misunderstands the plan and she thinks he only wants three because he spelled morphine with a backwards E for some reason. And she thinks it's only three morphemes. So she throws out the entire bottle.

[Jen Coney]

And keeps three, which is not enough.

[Caroline]

For him to kill himself. It is not enough to kill yourself. And he's like, rats. He's like, okay, so there's a hypochondriac who's in the opposite bed and he has morphine. So she then gets her to go across and steal from his thing. And then he literally. I forgot about this entirely. He takes the bottle of morphine and he spreads all of the pills out on, like a bib in front of him. He's lying completely flat. She is still there. He's still telling the story and he's Gobbing the pills.

[Jen Coney]

And it's just like when I fall asleep. Go, don't stay around.

[Caroline]

Exactly. Which is like fucked. Yeah. Like something about. I don't think I ever noticed that in my previous watches. Like, oh, he's gobbing them, he's going down.

[Jen Coney]

He's literally committing suicide with a six year old next to him.

[Caroline]

And then the kicker is, is that like they were only giving hypochondriac sugar pills.

[Jen Coney]

So he just was absolutely just like honked out on sugar.

[Caroline]

Yeah, yeah. He was just eating M and Ms.

[Jen Coney]

It was a kid at Christmas who just had too many.

[Caroline]

Yeah.

[Jen Coney]

But you really think he's dead for a minute though.

[Caroline]

You really do.

[Jen Coney]

I really thought he was dead and I was really quite upset by it.

[Caroline]

Yeah.

[Jen Coney]

But then he wasn't. But then the final time.

[Caroline]

Yeah.

[Jen Coney]

That she goes for morphine for him.

[Caroline]

Yes.

[Jen Coney]

When she's trying without him asking.

[Caroline]

Yeah.

[Jen Coney]

That's kind of where the wizard battle happens because she goes for a final time. He's so upset. He's really like. He's in a dark place.

[Caroline]

Yeah.

[Jen Coney]

He's like.

[Caroline]

He's having a screaming fit because he's realized that he's taken sugar pills or whatever. And she just wants to. She wants to make him better. She wants to look after her friend and she wants to get to the end of the story.

[Jen Coney]

Yeah, she wants him to tell the end of the story. And so she goes back into the dispensary to get the morphine and she falls off a countertop and she breaks her skull.

[Caroline]

It's a horrible little scene.

[Jen Coney]

It's a very possessed toy moment.

[Caroline]

Very Tim Burton. Yeah, Tim Burton before they gave him money. You know, I think again, one of.

[Jen Coney]

Those moments where sort of the implication is more powerful than a gruesome body horror would be because you sort of see her injury and the operation that she has to have, the emergency her. She has to have through this kind of imagined, kind of. Yeah. Possessed toy escape. And it's so creepy. But then she wakes up and that's when he sort of. He's by her bedside and he realizes that she's done this for him and she's nearly died and he doesn't want her to die. He wants him to die. And they're just kind of having this conversation that I feel like we should probably return to because there's more joyful bits to get through first. Which I think is such a kind of core part of the. The thesis of this film, if there is one.

[Caroline]

Yeah.

[Jen Coney]

About kind of the battle of Wills between them and about who actually owns that story and who gets to keep it and who gets to decide what happens.

[Caroline]

You're so right. Because, like, he. And we haven't really talked. We've only really talked about the hyper realism part of the movie.

[Jen Coney]

I think we should be talking about the fantastical parts.

[Caroline]

And we'll get to that in a second. But we're here right now.

[Jen Coney]

We are. Let's do it.

[Caroline]

This thing of. Because, yeah. This story has from the jump, been a collaboration between the two of them. And even in the earlier stages where it's like, she's like, no, he's not French, he's Spanish or whatever.

[Jen Coney]

He's not this.

[Caroline]

And this is his daughter. And. No, no, no. And that thing where a child is at a bed, just pushing for their input and it's so cute and whatever. And that. Then when you get to the very end after this whole movie of them collaborating on the story together and he just starts killing people.

[Jen Coney]

Yes.

[Caroline]

He starts chomping people.

[Jen Coney]

He just starts. And he's doing it kind of again. It's like he's been quite brutal in the chomping. But she still finds a way to almost, like, slightly redirect it. So when I can't remember the name of the character, but he gets shot full of arrows and then he falls on his arrows. And like, obviously in Roy's mind, which we don't see, this is incredibly bloody and horrid because he probably has some idea of what it looks like to be shot by a load of arrows. And she just imagines him as kind of like a weird porcupine who just like lies almost like on a bed of arrows.

[Caroline]

Yeah.

[Jen Coney]

And she still finds ways to kind of to censor it for herself. But, you know, he keeps going. He keeps on killing off all of these characters that she's. She's based them on people she knows as well. Every single actor in the fantasy scene is someone who she's chosen from her real life, who she likes, generally.

[Caroline]

Yeah.

[Jen Coney]

And he's just murdering them one by one. And she just goes like, you know, I don't want you to die, just stop doing it. She's asked. He's trying to stop him from killing.

[Caroline]

Me, bawling her eyes out. It's so hard to watch. And, like, it is this. You don't really know whether is he doing this because he's just. His mind is in that dark space or because he wants to teach her that, like, he has to die. People she likes will die. And this is almost like, emotionally preparing her for the tools of, like, people will die. Which, of course, we know. Alexandria knows already because her father died. Her father died, her house was torched by, like, quote, unquote, angry people. Like, we get the sense it's never gone into, but I get the sense that, like, she. Her and her family are obviously immigrants and they left some kind of war situation in order to get to America.

[Jen Coney]

Yeah.

[Caroline]

Or do you think it happened in America?

[Jen Coney]

Couldn't tell you. But definitely her dad died.

[Caroline]

Yeah. And her house was torched.

[Jen Coney]

And her house was torched. It was terrifying.

[Caroline]

Yeah.

[Jen Coney]

That's what you get. She knows this, and that's the thing. You have that moment where, I suppose near the end, where he's killing everyone off and he's basically threatening to kill the character that she's written as him in her mind. She begs him not to kill that character, but you know that she also means him himself. She's not just in the story, then. I think that, like, she uses the story to protect herself slightly from the real world, but when she's begging Roy to not kill. I've forgotten the name of the General Odious.

[Caroline]

No, that's the. I think it's just the Blue Bandit or something.

[Jen Coney]

Yeah, the Black Bandit. The Red Bandit, One of the bandits.

[Caroline]

He's a bandit.

[Jen Coney]

He's a bandit. When she's begging him not to kill the bandit, and she does say. I can't remember if. She says, I think. I think I don't want you to die. Don't kill him. And she doesn't say here. She knows that this story is also not a story. And so she's using that as a way to try and talk to him about a thing that's a bit too big for her to look at directly, which is also what we do with stories and certainly what children do with stories.

[Caroline]

Yeah, yeah. And they're having this kind of. This argument and this tussle, and it's sort of like this sort of metatextual thing is sort of like they're both responsible for the story. It is communal property that belongs to both of them. But it's also assurances. Not assurances, but it's like a reminder to him that, like, you know, this story does not exist in a vacuum. Your life does not exist in a. In the vacuum. You may think you have the right to end it whenever you want, but. And you do, in one sense or another. But, like, it will affect other people and namely her.

[Jen Coney]

Totally. It's like a story. A story is by its definition, something that is shared. You can't have a story on your own. You tell somebody. And he said, that is. That is a quote from it.

[Caroline]

She.

[Jen Coney]

She's objecting to what he's doing. And he says, it's my story. And she goes, it's mine too.

[Caroline]

Yeah.

[Jen Coney]

And it is her story too.

[Caroline]

It's. It's very heavy.

[Jen Coney]

It's very. It's very heavy. But it's done. It's held so lightly. And I think that's. Again, there's another version. There's another world where a different filmmaker made this film. And it's much more brutal and dark and like.

[Caroline]

Yeah.

[Jen Coney]

Creepy.

[Caroline]

Yeah. But for some reason, that scene, it's so upsetting because you're watching this beautiful, charming actress, like, getting her heart ripped out. But there's something like fairy cleansing or something about it. It's like. I don't know, something. I think it's because we just talked about Billy Zane a minute ago. There's something. You know, when, like, you see Rose go below deck with that big axe, she's, like, in the most danger she'll ever be in, but she's kind of free because she's waiting.

[Jen Coney]

The axe.

[Caroline]

In a way, it's kind of gives me that same feeling when I watch it.

[Jen Coney]

Yeah. She's got. She's not. She's vulnerable and she's not in control, but she doesn't. She's not lost her power completely.

[Caroline]

Yeah.

[Jen Coney]

And even if she doesn't necessarily know what it is, she knows that she has some ability to influence something and she's trying really hard.

[Caroline]

Yeah. Do you want to talk more about the. The actual fantasy bits of movie?

[Jen Coney]

I really do. I kind of almost, I suppose probably when you think of the fall in your mind and you conjure a little image, you probably think more of the fantastical elements and less of the kind of real life storyline.

[Caroline]

I don't know. I mean, I think I think of her.

[Jen Coney]

Yeah. Okay, that's. But, yeah, that is very true. That's very true. Loved it, loved it, loved it. I think I wrote down, when we were making notes, I was like, it's Wes Anderson meets House of Hackney meets Star wars episodes 1, 2, 3.

[Caroline]

Yes. Very Princess Padma.

[Jen Coney]

Very much so. Very like. But, like, very precise, very symmetrical, but also very maximalist. I just.

[Caroline]

There's just nothing quite like it that really isn't.

[Jen Coney]

It feels like kind of. It's a mishmash of different things, but in that way, it's his own style. Like, it just. But it's not been. I haven't seen anyone emulate it. I love it. I would like to see more of it. I even just like the costuming. Like Charles Darwin wearing a giant butterfly Muppet coat.

[Caroline]

Why was he called that? Why was he Charles Darwin?

[Jen Coney]

Because I think he was Charles Darwin in Roy's mind. And. And he's a famous naturalist who's looking for butterflies. And so in Alexandria's mind, she's like, well, of course he'd wear a giant fur coat that looks like a butterfly. Obviously. What else is a famous naturalist from the England Gundam wear? Certainly not some boring brown suit. That would be stupid.

[Caroline]

It just occurred to me there, you know, he's got his monkey friend. Yes. Who's called something, I think, like Winston or something.

[Jen Coney]

Ah, it is something like that, isn't it?

[Caroline]

I'm sorry.

[Jen Coney]

We saw it a few days ago.

[Caroline]

Yeah.

[Jen Coney]

We moved house since then.

[Caroline]

Yeah. We don't know. But it makes me think, like, oh, is he definitely a monkey in Roy's head? Because there's a whole bit where, like, the monkey dies and Charles Darwin is like, I'm so sorry. All the ideas, they were all yours. Or whatever. And you're like, oh, I don't think.

[Jen Coney]

He is a monkey.

[Caroline]

Then he's like, roy.

[Jen Coney]

And that's probably his assistant.

[Caroline]

Yeah.

[Jen Coney]

In her mind, she's like, must be a monkey.

[Caroline]

Must be a monkey. Must be a monkey. Oh, okay.

[Jen Coney]

I'd have to watch it again to know, but I wonder if that's. Maybe she just makes up the monkey beater. Love that.

[Caroline]

Yeah. I mean, I've seen it so many times, but, like, I. I mean, I haven't before this watch. I hadn't seen it in about 10 years. But I would like to go through that again with a real fine tooth comb of, like. How much of this is Alexandra just totally inventing. Wallace. Wallace.

[Jen Coney]

I'm hearing Wallace. I'm hearing, like, the Wallace Collection. And I'm thinking Wallace is actually a friend of Charles Darwin's. A monkey.

[Caroline]

So funny. Assistants are monkeys.

[Jen Coney]

Huge if truth.

[Caroline]

That's so child logic, though. Like, an assistant is a monkey.

[Jen Coney]

Yes. What's that? Must be some kind of monkey, I suppose.

[Caroline]

Must be some kind of monkey, I guess.

[Jen Coney]

Must be some little simian helper.

[Caroline]

While we're on the subject of, like, all the sort of supporting cast who are in this movie, there's a lot of very gorgeous men who are very partially clothed in this movie.

[Jen Coney]

The power of nudity in this film.

[Caroline]

Yeah.

[Jen Coney]

Tasim Singh understands the power of nudity.

[Caroline]

He really does.

[Jen Coney]

And I think, again, a thing we noted at the time, in any other film where there's an ensemble cast, only one of whom is a woman who is hot.

[Caroline]

Yeah.

[Jen Coney]

She's gonna be in a bikini for at least one scene, if not most of them.

[Caroline]

I admire Jurassic World. Rebirth's restraint.

[Jen Coney]

Commitment to.

[Caroline]

No, the restraint. Just give that girl a vest.

[Jen Coney]

Strange. A vest was worn. Nobody. In fact, the most like, explicit clothing was tight. Top man with nips out.

[Caroline]

Oh, yeah, very much.

[Jen Coney]

Perhaps Jurassic World is a successor to the Fall in some ways. I think Jonathan Bailey could be a newly paced for our generation.

[Caroline]

Oh, in a way. In a way, yeah.

[Jen Coney]

But to return back to the Fall, I actually forgot the name of the actress who plays Katinka Taru.

[Caroline]

No, sorry, that's Alexandria.

[Jen Coney]

And I do know her name because whenever I see it, I'm like, of course, a beautiful woman who is just dressed in like sumptuous fabrics and at one point doves, but at no point a bikini. How wonderful for her.

[Caroline]

Because why would a six year old imagine that?

[Jen Coney]

Because why would a six year old imagine that.

[Caroline]

Six year old imagine. Strange ornate gowns, I guess.

[Jen Coney]

Yes. And it's very. I say Padme, very like Star wars, like huge hairdressers. But interestingly, the six year old does imagine absolutely ripped men in loincloths.

[Caroline]

I wonder what that's about. You little perv.

[Jen Coney]

I think that's a directorial choice, but I love. I loved it. It was just kind of like. I had the feeling that maybe he had shot a perfume ad or maybe these were some extras from the Gladiator shoot. And he was just like your heart. Can you just come to the desert.

[Caroline]

For a bit and just like, be parties?

[Jen Coney]

So oiled up. Even the, like, old mystic kind of hot.

[Caroline]

Yeah. The naked guy who lives in a tree.

[Jen Coney]

The naked guy lived in a tree. He's kind of hot. But I think, I mean, this was something that, again, people don't understand the power of nudity and the way it can be used properly.

[Caroline]

Oh, my God.

[Jen Coney]

Properly, both in film and irl.

[Caroline]

Those of you who are just here to listen to the full commentary, maybe skip the next few minutes, look away.

[Jen Coney]

For three or four minutes.

[Caroline]

Now, we have a great thing to tell you. This is an important thing we discovered while we were on holidays in Portugal.

[Jen Coney]

Yes.

[Caroline]

And it's about nudity. It is. Now, me and Jen, along with Taco Tongue, are one of our big sort of tenants of our friendship, is that we think that being naked with your friend in a non Sexual environment, preferably outdoors.

[Jen Coney]

In a body of water.

[Caroline]

In a body of water is the most important thing you can do for your mental health.

[Jen Coney]

So powerful, so good. Particularly body image.

[Caroline]

Particularly your body image. Would you love to say that your friend is a hog? But more, you're in kind of a private body of water and like loads of your mates are around and you're all a bit, you're all nude. There's a sense of like, there's a marked difference to when you're all in bikinis. Because the bikini is a pass fail ratio. Do you know what I mean?

[Jen Coney]

If I'm in a bikini, I've been compared in my own mind and minds of others to everyone who's ever worn a bikini.

[Caroline]

Exactly.

[Jen Coney]

Specifically models.

[Caroline]

You're thinking bunching, you're thinking stuff going up in the crack of your arse. You're thinking you're kind of titting out of a cup. You know, it's, you know, it's, it's. It has that feeling of like, you know when a ham is wrapped in twine? Yes.

[Jen Coney]

It's amazing. It's almost like you've seen me in a bikini.

[Caroline]

Every time I see a ham wrapped in twine, I think I.

[Jen Coney]

But that's how it feels.

[Caroline]

But when you and your pals are naked in the lake together, if you're lucky enough to find a lake private enough that you can sort of do that.

[Jen Coney]

And we do.

[Caroline]

And we find them.

[Jen Coney]

You're like a seal, you know, you.

[Caroline]

Feel like a lovely seal.

[Jen Coney]

You just like, you disappear and you're like, I'm a marine mammal. I'm beautiful.

[Caroline]

Yeah.

[Jen Coney]

I'm perfect. Look at me. This is nothing. Never have I felt so good about my body.

[Caroline]

Yeah.

[Jen Coney]

As when I've been swimming naked for a few days with my pals.

[Caroline]

It's. So I really recommend, I really, really recommend it. So good. If you can do it. And I will say that Portugal is absolutely steaming with little lake houses. There's so many rivers and lakes in Portugal. It's the best holiday you can possibly go on. But we. So we were on this beautiful lake. Beautiful lake that was like during the week, extremely private.

[Jen Coney]

Yeah. Much new to me.

[Caroline]

And then obviously because it's a weekend spot, people get the fucking bus up from Porto and they want to go jet skiing. And that, I guess, is there. Right.

[Jen Coney]

But jet skis and party boats.

[Caroline]

Just party boats. Absolutely. Filled with 22 year olds in bikinis. In bikinis. Which is good for them, I guess. But like, I'm fine with them doing that, but not in my little inlet. No, not in this tiny little zone. But you got the whole big river for that. This is a tiny little zone. And so I think the normal thing to do would be like, there's people here. Why don't we cover up, put a throw on. But we were like, hang on a second. If we stay naked and not in like a sexy girl's, not like sirens.

[Jen Coney]

Beckoning from a rock. Just like Germanic, big Celtic, Celtic fighting nudity.

[Caroline]

We just painted in woes, stood there and stared at them while naked. That, yes, there's a chance that there could be some like, you know, drunk guys who do something inappropriate or say something weird, but the far greater likelihood is that they will get so uncomfortable that they will leave. And in every scenario, that is what happened.

[Jen Coney]

It happened over and over again. We held on earth. The first time it was just a couple and we were like, we can take the couple. They went next. It was a family. They were there for like 30 seconds and then they hopped up off the river. By the time the party boats rolled in, we were just like, we can.

[Caroline]

Take them, we can take them.

[Jen Coney]

It was amazing how they'd pull up, they'd put on the music, they'd be like, woo, woo, woo. You know, like dance like, you know, having not noticed us yet. And then there'd be a kind of moment of silence. But clearly someone on the boat clocked.

[Caroline]

There were two. Are those chicks naked?

[Jen Coney]

Really pale women just naked on the shoreline. And then it's like the music would go off and the boat would turn slowly and just be like, off it went.

[Caroline]

Yeah, honestly, people are really uncomfortable.

[Jen Coney]

People are. I think you assume that with nudity you are the one who will feel uncomfortable. But in actual fact, quite often other people are more weirded out by it than you are. Or they think they've done something wrong or they think you're gonna think they're a perv. Yeah, look, they're more scared of us than we are of them.

[Caroline]

Totally.

[Jen Coney]

So that's important bit of knowledge for everyone here. If you're in a secluded area on private land where you can sunbathe nude, you can probably get rid of jet skis and party boats quite easily.

[Caroline]

Yeah, you can.

[Jen Coney]

Just with the power of your bod.

[Caroline]

And as I always say to you, whenever we make a choice to get naked in a semi private, semi public body of water spot, which I always say is, when did you ever see two naked people and think, what losers. On some level, it's cool to be naked.

[Jen Coney]

It is I think we've been doing this for years with various different groups. You know, like, you know, little tiny nature naturist resorts. And every time someone happens upon us all prancing around in the stream butt naked.

[Caroline]

Yeah.

[Jen Coney]

It's always them who are like, oh, can we be naked too?

[Caroline]

Yeah, exactly.

[Jen Coney]

People join us. Then we've had people look weird at us.

[Caroline]

Yeah.

[Jen Coney]

If they want to leave, they can leave. Tasman Singh understands the power of nudity. And I think he has bathed naked in bodies of water. I think he's done it with friends, too. And I think in this film, he has taken that power and he has employed it judiciously. He's done it for good. And that is why there are just loads of half naked men in it. And I love to see it. A bit of objectification, always good. Can I also have a moment for General Odin? Governor Odious.

[Caroline]

Governor Odious.

[Jen Coney]

A direct line back to Farquhar. A direct line back to Humperdinck. Just the kind of. Just the rich theme of a never, like, fully understood character. Just. He's just got a lot of sass, you know, Odious, Farquad, Humperdink. All in their different ways, have a vibe.

[Caroline]

Exactly.

[Jen Coney]

They come in hot. I don't understand their backstory. No one knows why they do what they do. No one cares.

[Caroline]

It's like, yeah, it's good for a villain to have motivation. I really enjoy the Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes. The book, not the movie. Yes, the like. It's good to understand where a villain's coming from, but it's also even better for someone to just be big and camp and evil. Because they're evil.

[Jen Coney]

Perfect. That person's evil. It's called Governor Odious, so he must look like the radiographer.

[Caroline]

Yeah.

[Jen Coney]

Makes perfect sense.

[Caroline]

Exactly.

[Jen Coney]

I get it. I get it. I understand it.

[Caroline]

I think we just need to. I think backstory culture has become too rampant in the arts. And a sentence that makes total sense. I just said.

[Jen Coney]

And again, our new favorite film really proves that. Jurassic World. Rebirth. Do we understand the backstory?

[Caroline]

No, not really.

[Jen Coney]

It's sketched in my boy, my mother, couple of brief references to some kind of trauma that isn't really realized. And that's cool. No one cares. We want to see dinosaurs and we.

[Caroline]

Want to see Chomping Chomp, chomp, chomp. And the villain is Big Pharma, question mark.

[Jen Coney]

We don't know the two villains. I always remember that thing you told me about. We were talking about something, probably Lord of the Rings, and talking about gifts as well, and how you have to have your little villain and your big villain.

[Caroline]

You do have to have a little villain and a big villain because, like, there has to be. Especially if you're doing any kind of trilogy or a series, there has to be a sort of a halfway point where your people find a victory. But then we have to have that moment where it pulls out. It's like, no, this victory is not enough. We need the bigger, grander victory. And that's why in Jurassic park, we have the villain is dinosaurs want to chomp us, but the real villain is big pharma. I thought that was fantastic.

[Jen Coney]

And I thought no notes. Absolute 10 out of 10 for me. I think we did. I kind of briefly mentioned it before. The costuming in this film.

[Caroline]

Yes.

[Jen Coney]

But again, I just think. And I kind of want to go back to it because I think it's so good. You don't get enough, like, really out there costuming in films any day, apart from Emily in Paris and just like that.

[Caroline]

Yeah, Yeah.

[Jen Coney]

I just think the visual world here.

[Caroline]

It'S a visual medium.

[Jen Coney]

It's a visual medium, and I think more people should be going in with, like, big ideas. I did feel really sorry for almost all of the actors, though, because it looked hot.

[Caroline]

It looked hot as hell.

[Jen Coney]

It looked hot to wear a Muppet coat or to wear a full general's uniform or to wear a dress of doves. That looked hot.

[Caroline]

Yeah.

[Jen Coney]

I hope they were paid well for it.

[Caroline]

Oh, and that. Yeah. The one female character whose name I.

[Jen Coney]

Can'T remember with her in 90s makeup.

[Caroline]

Yes. She had the most 90s makeup. I don't know what that was about exactly.

[Jen Coney]

I mean, I guess in the imagination of a child, everyone looks like they're an atomic kitten.

[Caroline]

Very strange.

[Jen Coney]

Why? Why not?

[Caroline]

Do you know what the thing is? It's like. It's this, as we say, it's a movie of two halves. The kind of the realist half and the fantasy half. But, like, the realist half is far easier to talk about. Right. Because the rest is just like.

[Jen Coney]

Well, the rest is very much like perfume ads for sale. Like, it's big, kind of beautiful set pieces. Lots of match cuts, which I love to see, you know.

[Caroline]

So what's a match cut?

[Jen Coney]

It's where you, like, have a thing on. This is me just, like, sounding like I know more than I do. Well, you've got a thing on a screen and then you cut to a new scene. But there's an element of what was there before that stays so like if you had a circle, like it was a donut and then you cut away and it was the sun.

[Caroline]

Right. Or if you had like a smear in the mud and then it was like the Nike logo.

[Jen Coney]

Yes, exactly. Like, again, very advertising to be like, ooh, our distinctive brand assets are being said seeded here.

[Caroline]

Yes. Yeah, There was a particular bit. It's about the mystic and the mystic is like he summoned his mystic brothers in order to like give instructions of where General Odius is or something. It's quite vague.

[Jen Coney]

Quite a strange scene.

[Caroline]

But you pointed out as it was happening. It's a kind of. It's very impressive and choreographed. It's like all these kind of naked. Naked hollering guys. Yeah. Who are, I guess, are supposed to be kind of tribal but in a non specific way, moving their hands around and you were like, this feels like a 90s advert for Vaseline. It does. Everyone's nude body is shining and your.

[Jen Coney]

Skin is your most important organ. Take care of it. It's what I expected to happen. But I love that none of this is a critique or criticism of it. It's just. I really enjoyed the kind of all out. Just straight in there. I'm going big. No subtlety needed here. The subtlety is kept for the emotional stories, not for the visual. Visual feast. Subtle emotion. And that's how it should be in a great fairy tale.

[Caroline]

You're so right. You're so right.

[Jen Coney]

No moralizing.

[Caroline]

God, you're clever.

[Jen Coney]

Thanks. So are you. I mean, I feel like we're coming almost to the end. Do you feel like we're coming to the end of the film?

[Caroline]

It does feel like we're coming to the end.

[Jen Coney]

Because the end, I think, is like a real. Again, both a gut punch and an incredibly hopeful ending. Reminds me a little of the Grand Budapest Hotel. Go on in that respect. So at the end of the film, we obviously see Alexandra, Alexandria and Roy watching his quite shonky film together whilst all sitting around in the hospital. And then we kind of get this cut to her voiceover and she's talking about the fact that she left the hospital, her head got fixed and her arm got fixed. She went back to the orange farm. We sort of briefly see her friends and the people who she based the story on. And then she talks about the fact that some years later she saw Roy in a film and so she knew he was alive. And there's this little kind of scene of what seems to be Lee Pace doing a stunt. And then it goes on and it starts to Kind of cut to this amazing reel of all of the completely batshit stunts that people used to do before there were lawyers in Health and safety.

[Caroline]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Jen Coney]

Like houses falling on things and all this stuff.

[Caroline]

And it's like very famous scenes, like Buster Keaton scenes, scenes that couldn't possibly be Roy.

[Jen Coney]

Couldn't possibly be. And she's talking and she's like. And I think her mother says something to her. And she thinks that her mother's lying. I can't remember what her mother says, but she says she's watching all these films, and I know that Roy is making all the falling. And she believes, genuinely believes, that he is the stuntman in every single one of those films. And she takes such solace from it. She's like, my friend, Roy survived. He got better. His completely irreversible paralysis, let's be clear, somehow was reversed through the modern miracle we're never told.

[Caroline]

It's totally irreversible.

[Jen Coney]

I would say it's pretty clear, yeah, that he's not getting better in that sense and he needs to find a new way to live in a differently abled body. But she believes that he's had some kind of modern miracle of medicine and he's now a stuntman. He does all these cool stunts, and she's telling the story so happily, and she's like, he's making all the falling, and he becomes every stuntman for her. So you imagine that for the rest of her life, every time she sees a stunt, she's like, that's my friend Roy. And it's so beautiful because she's found such hope in that. And then you, as the viewer are like, I'm pretty sure that's not Roy. And I'm not sure that Roy would have made it much longer, given how intent he was on being dead. And I don't know what happened to Roy. We never know what happened to Roy. But she gives him a happy ending, even if he didn't get one for himself in real life. Oh, God. And he gets to live on, even though. And it's very much to me. The Grand Budapest Hotel when Gustave M dies. But Zed remembers him and the story continues. I just. I thought it was so perfect.

[Caroline]

Yeah. I guess both of them are just about stories of, like, people who just briefly enter your life and change them forever and then leave them again.

[Jen Coney]

Yeah.

[Caroline]

And there's something. I don't know. Our brains are so programmed to want happily ever after. And then every Saturday, Roy came round to the orange farm and we all had a Picnic or whatever. And it's like, no, that's.

[Jen Coney]

That's probably not what happened.

[Caroline]

Yeah, that's not what happened. Can I tell you something really embarrassing?

[Jen Coney]

What?

[Caroline]

Until we watched it this time and you said something similar to this when we watched it, I kind of did think he might be one of the stunned ends. Not all of them, but at least some of them. And I kind of thought maybe his legs did get better and maybe they did. I have a childlike sense of wonder, by the way. You do have a childlike sense of.

[Jen Coney]

Wonder, and I really did. I think it's a really powerful choice by the director to not specify either way and to leave that hope, because that's what stories do, is they create hope and they create possibility, even where your logical, rational brain maybe says there is none. And if it kind of cut to a scene of Roy's gravestone, it would have been a very different film. I like the fact that she lives on in. He lives on in her mind and possibly in real life. But we don't know for sure.

[Caroline]

Yeah. Yeah. We don't really know.

[Jen Coney]

We never know.

[Caroline]

So I would say the most emotional closure that we get from Roy is that he's in the screening room, he's got his dog in his lap, who is a terrier, which obviously is very moving to us.

[Jen Coney]

Always very moving. Another great cornerstone, along with nudity and taco coughs.

[Caroline]

And he kind of has this moment where he knows his fall is coming up and he's, like, getting really panicked. And such a testament to, like, Lee Pace as a performer that you can see so much internal conflict even though he's not doing anything, that he's panicking about seeing this, and then it's kind of over in a second. And it cuts to the guy who stole his girlfriend, the movie star.

[Jen Coney]

Yeah.

[Caroline]

And he sort of just kind of exhaled, and he's like, oh, okay. And then somebody who is his friend who's in the movie business is like, oh, yeah, they're all going this way now. You know, there's lots of work. And also that same friend who visited him in an earlier scene who has a prosthetic leg is like, oh, I'm working. I'm getting an arrow in the knee and I'm working all the time, or whatever. That's so bad, being a disabled guy in early cinema or whatever. And. But. And you get this sense that there, like, is a life out there for Roy if he wants it.

[Jen Coney]

Yes, you do.

[Caroline]

It's. If he can do it, you know.

[Jen Coney]

And he might Think that the thing that's gonna be most difficult for him is overcoming a disability, but it's actually overcoming his own. The limitations he's put on himself.

[Caroline]

Yeah.

[Jen Coney]

Which is, I suppose, pretty common as an experience with all human beings is that sometimes the things we think we can't do are the things that hold us back more than things we actually can't do.

[Caroline]

Yeah.

[Jen Coney]

And I hope he. I hope he has a happy ending. I don't know if I believe that he does, but I like. But I don't know, maybe. Maybe I'm just depressive. Maybe that's my problem. Maybe it's that, but it doesn't. I don't know.

[Caroline]

Yeah, I know. I know what you mean. He was pretty intense.

[Jen Coney]

He was. I don't think you can get much more intense than that. And it didn't feel like he had some kind of massive revelation that actually he wanted to live and he found meaning in life. And maybe he's gonna fall in love with Alexandra's mother and then move to.

[Caroline]

No, no, no, no.

[Jen Coney]

I didn't think that a lesser filmmaker might have done such a thing.

[Caroline]

Yeah. But I think. Or like, we might have him and the nurse have a little winky moment.

[Jen Coney]

Oh, yeah. That could have happened because the nurse wanted to inter. Introduced to him because she recognized him to be hot.

[Caroline]

She did. Which he is.

[Jen Coney]

Yeah, he is. But we don't know what happens.

[Caroline]

Yeah.

[Jen Coney]

All we know is that for her, he is all the falling men.

[Caroline]

Yeah. Why do you think it's called the fall? Because they both experience falls in. That he does in the Guinness advert. In the. In the very beginning.

[Jen Coney]

Yes. And then she falls.

[Caroline]

And then she falls from the dispensary. But to like, you can. I mean, is it just because titles are hard, or do you think there is, like a bigger theme at work here about. About falling?

[Jen Coney]

Like falling from innocence and things like that?

[Caroline]

Oh, maybe. Yeah. I have no answers, just questions.

[Jen Coney]

Look, I would say, and this is maybe my advertising life coming in, that you make an advert, you just call it what it is. You know what I mean? You put a walls in the speedboat, you call it. Or a whizzer, you know, like you.

[Caroline]

Call it what it is.

[Jen Coney]

I think sometimes maybe that's a little bit of Tasim Singh's advertising world coming in, where he's like. And this film is called the Fall. Why two big falls in it. That's why. I could be wrong.

[Caroline]

Yeah.

[Jen Coney]

But I think it's just a quite a good. I like the simplicity of it.

[Caroline]

Yeah. No, I don't know if I have any big theory. And like, yeah, maybe it could be a fall from innocence, or it could be about what defines falls as how people get back up from them.

[Jen Coney]

And it's one of those titles that's, like, gnomic enough that it feels like it could have some mysterious meaning behind it, but I can also see a world where the director was just like, yeah, it's called the Fall. Whatever. That's not the important bit. We're just gonna.

[Caroline]

You were dead, right.

[Jen Coney]

Don't know, though. Don't know. Couldn't tell you.

[Caroline]

I remember having this conversation about titles with my friend Tessa Coates, and she said I was. Maybe she was right. But I was pitching her the idea for Skipshock, my novel, which would be really nice if you could all go.

[Jen Coney]

Out and buy it, is really, really good.

[Caroline]

It's very good. Everyone agrees. But she was like, that is a batshit concept. I was like, I know. I don't really know where it came from, but it is. And she was like, what are you calling it? I was like, skip Shock? And she was like, no, don't call it that. And I was like, why not? She was like, because it's such a fucking batshit concept that you need something really simple just to. So people don't get too confused. Just call it the Salesman, because there's traveling salesmen in the book. And I was like, no, I like My word. I made up. And who knows? Maybe she was right. Not enough time has passed post publication for us to know whether or not who is right, me or Tessa Coates.

[Jen Coney]

But please do a poll on Instagram.

[Caroline]

Do a poll. Who is right? Was it because the thing is, ideally, telling this story, 20 years would have passed and I'd be like. And we all know now that Skipshock is an iconic media property with its own ride at Disneyland. But at the moment, maybe it should have been called the Salesman.

[Jen Coney]

No, that was the Death of a Salesman. She's wrong. There's a.

[Caroline]

Okay.

[Jen Coney]

Yeah.

[Caroline]

I hope she is.

[Jen Coney]

I think she's wrong. I think she's wrong. But I like the Fall. I like that it's called the Fall. I don't know why it's called the Fall. Well, I accept it. What a great film. I'm so glad I got to finally see it.

[Caroline]

I know.

[Jen Coney]

What an honour to watch it with you on a river in Portugal.

[Caroline]

Yeah. Okay. Bye, guys.

[Jen Coney]

Bye. It's not.

[Caroline]

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