Tumbling After
Screenwriter Yuri Lowenthal crafts an intense erotic thriller that, despite a wonderful premise and decent plot and character development, falls flat mostly in part to the direction of J.B. Tallyrand. TUMBLING AFTER is the story of a couple where the husband Jack (Mark Swenson) is recovering from a traumatic event that sent him spiraling into a mental breakdown, and his wife Jill (Kimberly Rowe) who’s trying to come to terms with her husband’s new attitude, mood swings, and the life changing event that was the catalyst for her husband’s breakdown. Their already strained relationship is made even more complicated when Jack discovers a sex tape left in his home by a couple who were house-sitting for them while they were away on vacation. Intrigued by the tape, Jack develops an obsession that brings up buried memories and emotions with horrific results.
The overall execution of this movie is hit or miss. The cinematography is about 90% there, with a few scenes that border on genius while there are others that just look amateur. They do a great job capturing the eroticism of the sex scenes and have a great sense of camera placement and lighting throughout the movie. The audio is a little off in places and overall feels more “laid on” the film than integrated throughout. This doesn’t extend to the score though, which fit the film well. Jack’s transition from recovering wreck to homicidal maniac happens a bit unevenly and there is a feeling that some of the footage that was shot for the film didn’t make it into the final cut. Some of the acting feels forced, but to watch it doesn’t seem like that has anything to do with the caliber of the performances, but rather the direction they were given in the scene. Overall from beginning to end it just feels very uneven.
In terms of being an erotic thriller, they have the erotic part down but really don’t take advantage of a lot of key points in the movie to really bring home the elements of suspense and tension. The results of this are like having BASIC INSTINCT directed by Ed Wood. The film isn’t all bad though. The performances all around are pretty good, the cinematography and score are respectable, and the script has its moments. But in the end it just doesn’t sit well.
