Fall Review – Jack Thorne’s religious love is a big problem | Television

Yacquisition is a lost skill. It is difficult, in this day and age, to find ways to separate people so that passion grows, fed by hope and pessimism. What were once insurmountable obstacles – distance, marriage, unspeakable truths about sex – no longer help. What about religion? What about the love between two people that is forced to have the doctrine of marriage? Catholicism has its own thing, plus it comes with a sex-related legal system even for non-religious people.

In Falling, written by Jack Thorne, we have Keeley Hawes playing Anna, a nun who took vows 20 years ago and has lived a sheltered life ever since, under the watchful eye of Francesca (Niamh Cusack). And we have Especially Essiedu he plays Father David, a powerful young priest roaming the streets and trying to change the lives of his poor parishioners in Easton, a poor part of Bristol. It’s odd from the start, mostly because no one talks or acts like the main character. Since Anna is a nun who regularly goes to shops and banks for food and produce grown in the nunnery’s garden, this makes no sense. And since David is a priest who lives in the real world, it makes no sense. “They look beautiful!” Said a grocer of Anna’s seed box entering the store. “You’re a sweetheart, Graham!” he answers. “THESE are leaves!” I’m sorry, what?

This is a symptom of the blindness that is present in the entire love story (ie the main one). I don’t know if Thorne, who made a name for himself through heavy, genre pieces such as the This Is England trilogy, and dramas about animal issues such as disability rights, the plague and (recently, in the most difficult Adolescence) the violence of women and the manosphere, felt that he was not sure about his feelings in his heart or their religious life, but their religious life.

Sometimes, what we see sets us apart. Anna and David’s first contact happens when she burns herself while cooking for him, and she helps him run his hand under the faucet. This is apparently enough for her to leave the convent, take the bus to her church and confess her love to him: “I’ve never felt the way you feel about me!” “Does the convent know you’re here?” answers David, looking – as he does for three sessions (before the volte-face uncertain) – not like a man who is struggling with his thoughts but like a deer caught in the headlights. Even a self-absorbed nun receives such a message and Anna moves in with a compassionate priest named Muriel (Rakie Ayola) as she adjusts to secular life. This is quickly achieved by cutting hair, buying T-shirts with long sleeves and shaving his legs. The abbess mentions something about the seclusion process, but this seems pretty obvious.

Anna’s behavior towards David is naive, and Thorne seems to conflate naivety and naïveté with childishness, which gives Anna no consistency or relatability (in terms of people) to viewers.

David, meanwhile, has his past and secret, unknown history slowly revealed as, naturally, he makes an enemy of bishop Peter (Jason Watkins), who would rather spend the church’s money on burning down an underground church than on needle exchanges or more food banks.

In such cases, it often makes sense – even if there are professional actors – to let the feeling of real desire, love or desire to flow, let alone develop the necessary connection. The question of what it means to break the vows is never answered – again, if it’s outside of Thorne’s comfort zone.

On the edge, however, when David helps a troubled youth find a way out of an unhappy home, sees the pain of a daughter when she gives the last rites to a ruthless mother, deals with the fallout from her past problems and especially in the troubled, very loving relationship she has with her sister Susan (Sophie Stone), there is much to return to Thorne and settle down.

Everything else is hit and miss. But Thorne will be back with something even better soon.