When Falling Becomes a Journey: The Free Fall and Its Creators
Some movies are made purely for their entertainment value while others are like psychological reflections. The Free Fall, directed by Adam Stilwell, is one of those. It is a haunting, intimate sory of trauma and identity, and to add depth to the film, the actors’ personal stories closely mirror the inner turmoil of their characters.
This is not only the story of the film, but also the story of the people who built it. Each one of them carries their own personal struggles, their own stories of recovery, and their own moments of free fall before their free falls came to a halt.
A House Full of Secrets, A Woman Full of Broken Memories
The film opens with a woman named Sara (Andrea Londo), who is recovering from a suicide attempt after being a witness to a horrific scene involving her parents. She wakes up in a mansion, where she is being taken care of by her husband Nick (Shawn Ashmore) in a very gentle, but also very controlling manner.
Unlike many Indian homes where silence speaks more than words, this residence, although calm, has some shadows hidden within. It is in this calmness that Sara begins to doubt her own existence. Something is off in the walls. Clumps of previous memories, sealed, begin to slide out from the depths of her subconscious. As time goes by, Nick’s gentle demeanor shifts toward the more predatory. It is the soft precision of a puppeteer, out of sight, focusing on control.
When Sara collects herself, she understands that the true demon is not her memories. It is the thing that resides in the walls of the home—and within Nick.
On the surface, the film appears to have a supernatural theme, but at the core, it speaks to an innately human experience: straying from one’s true self and the struggle to reclaim a lost identity.
Andrea Londo: It Is a Psychological Dig Sara Became Not Just A Character, But It Was A Psychological Dig For Andrea Londo
Known for her catchy, intricate roles that Andrea Londo nabbed in Narcos, it was not simply a role to her that Sara was. Londo’s The Free Fall, although unlike her recent works, needed an entirely different form of acting for it to be a success. A gentle sort of acting that lacks theatricality. A sort of acting that channels pure, innocent, and deep-rooted fears.
Andrea has previously discussed the anxiety and the pressure the Latina background gives her and her acting career during the process of trying to break the Hollywood bubble and the typecasting her roles often get. Just like the many young Indian actors trying to break the typecasting of roles as well, she also dealt with escaping the “industry box” that many outsiders believe to be the only option.
Sara’s journey of being trapped, alone, and of feeling like she has no control over her life, is also very similar to Andrea’s past, and these two lives were very close to being one. Culturally, she grew up with two identities, and never fully with control over either one of them. When filming, she was said to keep a journal as Sara, and was even able to document memories that were out of her character’s life. This dedication to her character made her able to capture the subtle but impactful difficult acting of figuring out how to control one’s breathing, how to keep a still body that stays silent, and how to act with one’s eyes to portray the character that she was playing, who had a lot of fear to a believable extent.
Other crew members reported on Andrea’s behavior that was in line with her character, and stated that during cutting before the next scene, she would step aside just enough to be with her mind, and that she would be meditating just enough with her mind that she had to to carry the weight of Sara’s character over the shoot with her. In response, she carried the darkness of her character over the long shifts and dark set that Andrea Beyonce looped in the character. It was these very imbalances she had in her own life and made her break over the character that Andrea was able to portray her with a depth and emotional intensity that made people want to reach into the film and comfort and hold her hand.
Shawn Ashmore and the Art of Playing a Man Who Isn’t Really There
Shawn Ashmore earned the majority of the profiles and public data and national exposure as an Iceman in the X-Men film. Completely differently from all other performances, he now plays Nick in Unseen. Nick is affable, caring, and inquisitive, but initializes intellectual and emotional abuse. Wrapped in sly cunning, a mere manipulation, a form of toxicity, unrecognizable for many far too late in the process.
Particularly, in the preceding period of the movie, he was a father for the first time. Shawn Ashmore told the media he was more calm and empathetic but also more protective as a father. In light of the fact that he was portraying a character who emotionally and psychologically imprison the victim, he said that he never explores that particular character shadow version of himself, one which he states would never want to confront, real-life or otherwise.
Shawn did not approach Nick as a villain, but as a person who thinks he deserves to have control. This is where the nuance comes in, as he had obtained the psychology of coercive abuse control. Specifically, he drew upon the interviews of men who controlled their wives and wives who were controlled. This too is very relatable in the Indian context, where emotional abuse is packaged as “care,” “concern,” “family honor,” or “honor.”
Shawn in Andrea’s case gained confidence from Andrea, who, behind the scenes, he was gentle and caring to, and as a result, Andrea always felt that he was protecting her during the intense scenes. This is quite impressive and an example of great trust, ‘the great trust’ that made emotional abuse moments transition seamlessly on screen.
Jane Badler is one of the few who entered this spellbinding universe, overwhelming, charming, and elegant in a very old-fashioned way with psychological horror, which is quite rare. She as well has this classic, old-world charm in the psychological horror with her ancient role in old classic v series.
But, out of all this old-world elegance, there was a jarring part that was not old-world. It was her late son, who she lost due to personal tragedy. She lost her son a few years before Free Fall when she was acting to cope with her grief by virtue of her artistic abilities.
Also in this film, her character is the embodiment of an ancient, powerful, and subtly threatening form. Such performances were underpinned by real-world feelings of pain, acceptance, and the arduous journey of self-reconstruction. Jane, in her own words, cited the primary motivation for acting as “taking back life,” which thematically aligns with the film’s exploration of identity reclamation after one’s life had been shattered.
Why this film resonates with the viewers from different cultural backgrounds is emotional.
Under this psychological horror, which is an indie film, The Free Fall, resonates on a global scale as its themes border on universal:
the sense of self is lost
the habit of misplaced trust
trauma infliction and its repercussions
the silencing of self
Sara’s emotional suppression and her struggle resonates, particularly in Indian households as mental health is rarely spoken about. Gaslighting, control, and emotional dismissal are fears that most of the viewers resonated with.
The film’s homage to Indian folklore, while combining the supernatural and the representation of inner turmoil, is where most of the emotional wounds and truths remain unexpressed. It is horror that holds meaning—where metaphorical horror is used to interlace deep-rooted meaning.
What really happened Behind the Camera
While the filming took place within a single house, which almost assumed the role of a character. The actors used to joke the house would be in different moods, depending on how the lighting was set up.Some of the lesser-known facts from the set include:
Andrea instinctively performed many of her emotional scenes sans playback monitors.
Before filming intense scenes, Shawn and Andrea calmly breathed together.
To achieve the eeriness and sleep-deprived atmosphere the film required, the crew would sometimes film late into the night.
Improvised by Jane Badler, the subtle gestures that her character did were far more haunting than the script originally required.
Their film performances were greatly influenced by Adam Stilwell, who suggested that the actors view the movie they were filming, not as a horror film, but a psychological experiment.
A Film About Falling, Made by People Who Had Fallen and Risen.
The Free Fall isn’t just a film; it’s a blend of Andrea’s battle with her identity, Shawn’s darker emotional exploration, and Jane’s grief and recovery.
Each of these actors brought their own scars, their own strengths, their own victories with them to the film.
The story is as raw, unsettling, and human as it gets, and that’s why it works.