The Falls Trilogy

As a gay Christian artist, I have spent over 20 years exploring the relationship between spirituality and sexuality, and the various conflicts and struggles that exist, of which it seems not that many people are fully aware, even now. It’s a web of complex issues that is not strictly black and white. Many people, of faith and not of faith, believe that you have to choose one or the other, and do not understand the challenges faced by those who refuse to accept that mandate. When I first saw The Falls, and as I’ve followed the trilogy to its conclusion, I had a mixed emotional reaction to it. On one hand, I have felt jealous and frustrated that someone else has, in a sense, beat me to the punch in dealing with these issues in an extremely effective and satisfying way. Why could it not have been me? (The answer has to do with my lack of professional connections, confidence, giving up too quickly, etc.) But on the other hand, I am awestruck and inspired by this series of films that I truly believe everyone should see because they are some of the finest and most important works ever made on these topics. Many have tried before, and have fallen short. I won’t leave you in suspense. This is a most positive review. I will talk about why these movies work so well, and include some personal stories along with it.

Note: There will likely be some mild spoilers here, but nothing that would really ruin the enjoyment for people who haven’t seen the films. Just be warned though. I want people to see these movies, so if you think you shouldn’t find out a little ahead of time, see them first, then come back.

The Falls (2012)

When I saw The Falls for the first time, I didn’t realize that it was filmed in Portland until I saw local actor Brian Allard about a third of the way into the film. Later on, I would see Harold Phillips, who I know from way back when I stage managed a production of Speed the Plow that he starred in back in 2000. When you realize that something was done in your back yard and you didn’t know about it, you have kind of an “aw shit” moment, like, “I wish I could have been involved in this”, but truthfully I’ve never been involved in film, only theatre (though I write screenplays). Some of my readers know I went to film school and it did not agree with me. At all.

The Falls tells the story of two young Mormon men beginning their obligatory 2-year missionary work. Apparently, they are paired up (they are called each other’s "missionary companions") and end up rooming together, dorm-style. They receive training and practice in the evangelistic work that they will be doing.

Not surprisingly to anyone watching this movie, but surprising to the characters themselves, the two men (Chris, played by Ben Farmer) and RJ (played by Nick Ferrucci) form a very strong attraction and subsequent bond with each other, which leads to sexual intimacy. And not surprisingly, it turns their world upside down because not only do they have to wrestle with their own internal conflicts, but they also have a huge secret they must keep.

This film provides an interesting primer for people who are completely ignorant about the LDS church and what they believe. We see Chris and RJ talking to so-called “investigators” who are curious and sometimes skeptical, even critical, about their beliefs. We see what it’s like to have to explain and defend your beliefs to people who think you’re basically nuts. You also get to see things like Mormon underwear, which I’d never really seen…in fact, I didn’t know such a thing even existed. I just thought, Boy, these guys have some heavy-duty industrial knee-level chastity underwear that looks like it should also come with a padlock or alarm system should anyone come close, like Princess Vespa in Spaceballs. Not very erotic, but the film manages to find plenty of eroticism anyway. It doesn’t hurt that the two leading men are lookers.

We get a curveball in the Brian Allard character, a pot-smoking Iraq war vet with PTSD, who RJ and Chris get to know as part of their outreach. Rodney (Allard) is not religious at all, and on the surface, looks like a potentially bad influence on these two young men of God. Indeed, by film’s end, he’s got them smoking pot and watching R-rated movies. A change starts to take place in these characters’ lives as they reexamine their priorities, which affects their performance as missionaries and jeopardizes the secret relationship that they share.

Soon comes a crisis point. I won’t say what it is, but it’s fairly predictable, inevitable really. Soon we meet the families in the wake of said crisis, as everyone must decide where to go from here. We meet Harold Phillips, who is Portland’s answer to Tom Hanks, that affable guy whose face is always welcome in any movie or TV show. He plays the father of RJ, who is the more fortunate of the two lovers in that he has a fairly supportive family that is capable of adjusting. Chris does not. All of a sudden, the romance between the two men is subject to the dictates of God, the church, family, friends, and probably the dog as well. Will it survive? Who can know?

And that’s where they leave it. And to think, writer/director Jon Garcia—who is neither Mormon, nor gay—wasn’t originally going to follow it up with a sequel. But his film resonated with people, much more so than he could have imagined.

The Falls: Testament of Love (2013)

Part 2 is the most challenging of the trilogy, both for the characters themselves and for the audience. It’s an excellent film, but it is not an easy film to watch; it is actually grueling at times. And it is due to the honesty and the genuine humanity that is shown in every well drawn-out and nuanced performance.

Five years after the events of the first film, RJ and Chris have moved on with their lives. Chris has been pressured into reparative therapy, which paved the way for a marriage with a beautiful woman (Emily, played with real tenderness by Hannah Barefoot), a marriage that seems happy, but the audience—who always knows more than the characters do—understands it’s an ill-advised union based on lies and self-denial. They even have a kid and a lavish house, which is not quite as nice as the one the Cullen family owned in Twilight, but almost. (Where are these beautiful local homes, wonders the Portlander.)

RJ has also begun a new relationship with personal trainer Paul (played with heartbreaking vulnerability by Thomas Stroppel), and they reside in Seattle. The relationship isn’t perfect. You get the sense that Paul wants to change RJ in certain ways, to mold him into what he thinks he ought to be—eating better, exercising more, etc. It’s nothing compared to the pressure that Chris is enduring, but there is an unsettling disparity in terms of what they both want from the other, in spite of the very real affection that is apparent in their interactions.

What reunites RJ and Chris is the death of their old pal Rodney of cancer (although the cancer is only explained in a deleted scene; in the theatrical cut, I don’t think we even know what he died of). It’s an awkward reunion, and Chris has repressed his sexuality to the point of hostility towards RJ when it’s brought up. That hostility is intensified a few weeks later when RJ decides to take a trip to Salt Lake and drop by Chris’ house uninvited and unannounced in the middle of family dinner, setting off a series of events that threaten to blow up Chris’ family to smithereens.

One of the challenging things about this series—and most particularly, this installment—is that these people are revealed to be not constantly lovable paragons of virtue, but really deeply flawed human beings, sometimes incredibly selfish, incredibly reckless and irresponsible. There are several actions taken by both Chris and RJ that may seem very wrong to some viewers, including myself. You want to root for these people, but you sit in front of the screen just a little aghast at the audacity of some of these choices that are made. “Why did he just do that?!” you yell to yourself. And even I had to remind myself that these people, through no fault of their own, have been put into an extremely difficult circumstance, in which their very faith and eternal salvation may be at stake, not to mention their relationship with their families and communities, and balancing with that the question of the very legitimacy of true love. In extreme circumstances, people respond in extreme and desperate ways. You can’t really judge them too harshly because you can see every fragment of love, fear, anger, confusion, and despair in the faces of both RJ and Chris (in some of the most truthful and sensitive performances I’ve ever seen from Ferrucci and Farmer, who should go on to become enormously successful and famous because they deserve it). The same goes for the heartbroken Emily and Paul, who had the misfortune of being forced rebound relationships doomed to destruction by the on-again, off-again chaos that is this tortured romance.

There isn’t any hero or villain here. You genuinely come to feel for every character in this story, much more than in Part 1 because the stakes are so much higher. There is no way for anyone to come out of this unscathed, no way to avoid pain and heartache. Whose fault is it? Some of it lies in the church and the belief systems that oppress its members, but it also lies squarely in the hands of our protagonists, who don’t know how to find peace and happiness in a way that avoids running over the people they care about.

Not a feel-good movie, but a powerful one.

The Falls: Covenant of Grace (2016)

First off, one of my favorite film titles, ever. And very appropriate because if anyone needs grace, it is Chris, RJ, and their families.

In between seeing Part 2 and the filming of Part 3, I reached out to Ben Farmer by email, telling of how much I admired these movies. I’m one of a great number of people who have done this, generating the overwhelming response that encouraged the making of both parts 2 and 3. My friend Michael Stringfield, who produces sports programming but does occasional commercials on the side, asked if I would be an extra in a shoot for Eastside Distillings Burnside Bourbon, and because I have a hard time saying no to anything Michael asks of me, I showed up at this bar, and was surprised to see Ben Farmer as the main character in the commercial. It was a weird day because I felt like this closet groupie wannabe fanboy, wishing I would will myself to go schmoose with this actor that I was so impressed with, but I was too shy to do so. I resolved that he would someday act in one of my stage productions, but I would soon find out he was moving to New York. A few months after that, they started filming Covenant of Grace, and again part of me wished I could be an extra or something, but stayed away. I didn’t even attend the premier, which wasn’t a real premier because it was unfinished, but Farmer and Phillips were there, and it would have been fun.

Personal story aside, this takes place a year after RJ showed up in Salt Lake and tore Chris’ family apart, then left him alone to deal with the fallout. They do reconnect, and again, a death serves as a catalyst to the changes that happen in their relationship. This time, it is Chris’ beloved mother, who was supportive of him back when his dad was so harsh and judgmental. We see the life that RJ has built for himself in the last year, now in Portland. He’s got a pair of lesbian friends who seem a little out of place in this story. (Garcia has given them a lot of backstory, not all of which is included in this film to help the audience understand why they’re even there, and if fact, they should probably just have their own film.) Another new character is Ryan, a younger man who looks up to RJ and, in fact, has feelings for him. All these performances are very strong, especially Curtis Edward Jackson as Ryan, whose story closely mirrors that of Chris and RJ’s. But excellent performances are no surprise at this point; they are par for the course in these films. You’ve got to credit Garcia with having an eye for raw talent and clearly a gift for bringing out amazing work in his actors.

For the first time, it seems as though Chris and RJ have a real chance at the relationship that has eluded them for so long. Their family’s views are softening (with the exception of Chris’ angry brother, played by Andrew Bray in a role that may be one of the weakest in terms of the writing…Why didn’t Garcia give this character more dimension than homophobic anger and hostility?). But the church’s stance has been the opposite. Now there is a new proclamation from the church which states that children of gay couples can’t be baptized. This triggers the central conflict of this third installment, which is RJ and Chris having to finally answer for themselves that question that has been hanging over them for 7 years: how do they reconcile their faith and their love for one another? Can they have both?

If that was the only issue that this movie takes on, it would be a little redundant and tedious at this point because, like I said, it’s been right there in front of them the whole time. But this is a movie about relationships more than anything else. It’s not about preaching social, religious, or political viewpoints. It’s about the process of self-discovery, figuring out what you really want, what you really believe, and how you want to treat the people in your life. In what is arguably the most powerful scene, which oddly doesn’t even feature Ben Farmer, RJ and young Ryan are exploring their feelings for each other, and instead of just following the passion of the moment and the true affection that the two share, like you would expect from RJ (because, you know, we think we know him pretty well at this point), RJ puts on the breaks, realizing that taking that relationship to a physical level would only hurt Ryan because of RJ’s unresolved feelings for Chris, and because of Ryan’s similar situation with his own former missionary companion over which he pines day and night. This is a real evolution for RJ’s character, and it’s incredibly refreshing.

Chris has a similar moment with his father, from whom he has been seeking approval all his life. Once he gets it, he realizes that’s awesome, but even if that had not been given, he had come to the place where he could make his own decisions and be at peace with them.

Eventually, RJ and Chris decide what they’re going to do. Will they be together, at last? Obviously, I’m not going to say. What I will say is that Covenant of Grace is a satisfying conclusion to this beautiful and emotional story.

So what more is there to say about these films that I haven’t said yet? For me, it’s all about honest, totally invested performances, characters that feel so real that you almost believe you know them personally. It’s also the writing. While this material could have come across as fairly pedantic, Jon Garcia seemed more interested in telling a compelling story than in preaching any particular point of view. There are Issues, but they always take a back seat to the relationships, and that’s how it should be. That’s why I think a lot of films of this type fail is because they are throwing a sermon at you instead of engaging you in a very personal and relatable story. There is so much honesty and truth in these three films, it would take a hundred mainstream Hollywood movies to match it.

See these films. See them with friends and family. And then have them encourage others to. And, you know, I’ll get mine out eventually. 

Denial by Richard Strife

How do you escape an unhappy life? For Rebecca Silas, the young woman at the center of Richard Strife’s debut novel, Denial (Book I of a series called The Drakeon Chronicles), the answer is desperate and extreme. It is not enough to leave the man she’s about to marry at the altar; she’s going to leave this whole world behind. Fortunately for her, she has an annoying little brother named Alex who stops her in the act. But escape still comes in the form of a ghost dragon that appears out of nowhere and whisks Rebecca and her brother into a mythical world called Gaedia.

So begins one of only a few fantasy novels that I have read. I generally avoid them because they require more concentration—and perhaps even a little more imagination—from the reader who must memorize all kinds of foreign-sounding names, places, and things, in addition to filling in a lot of the mental details about descriptions of creatures and landscapes because if the author were to take the time to create a truly vivid picture for the reader, the novel would be 1,000 pages long. (And yes, I realize some are, and many fans have no problem with it!)  One of the greatest strengths of Denial is that it is accessible to folks like me, who usually prefer reading about the familiar to the otherworldly.

The idea that you can accidentally step through an unknown portal and end up in another world (or, in some cases, a parallel universe) is not a new one; it’s a tried-and-true convention of the fantasy and sci-fi genres, from Star Trek to The Dark Tower. It works best when the starting point is that place that you’re familiar with already. It grounds you in the story and characters so that when it’s time to take the journey to the unknown, you’ve got something that feels concrete to hold onto.

When Rebecca and Alex arrive in Gaedia, they find a world in extreme conflict, where dragons are massacring the townspeople left and right, in violation of an old treaty. We meet the handsome, charismatic prince Sebastian, who chases one such dragon away with his mind control abilities. Sebastian is on a mission to find his missing father, the future Emperor, but he also needs to get to the bottom of what’s going on with these attacks. Meanwhile, Rebecca meets a wounded female werewolf—or Lykos—called Kaece, who she helps flee from town undetected. Sebastian’s people, the Maedians, and the Lykos share a mutual hatred for one another. This is a central conflict in the story, as Rebecca and Alex need Sebastian’s protection in the wild continent of Xiratera, but Rebecca has formed an immediate and obsessive affinity with Kaece, which could prove deadly.

As Rebecca, Alex, and Sebastian travel the continent in something called a Hadros (a vehicle that will likely remind the reader of the All-Terrain Armored Transports used by the Empire in the Star Wars films), with a dangerous and seductive Lykos on their tail, they will get to the bottom of what’s happening to this now-threatened world, and in the process, fight dragons, fly through the air on mythical creatures, witness the unimaginable destruction and carnage of war, and discover a great deal about themselves.

Denial is a coming-of-age story, although I hesitate to call it a YA book because of the amount of graphic violence and sexual content. This is not Tolkien or C.S. Lewis; it’s more like Stephen King, and it might be disturbing to sensitive readers.

The story is told through four points of view, and the author is rather clever in the way he subtlety switches some stylistic elements chapter by chapter, depending on what character we’re following. He could have distinguished the characters even more if he had written one of them in first person perspective. But that’s a small matter. The one distinction that isn’t remotely subtle is that Alex’s chapters are in comics form, which is appropriate considering the character’s age of 13.

Comics are another thing I avoid, for a similar reason that I avoid fantasy. They take effort to get through and interpret correctly, to figure out what’s going on in the scene. The artist has to tell the story clearly with a limited number of frames, and I would be lying if I said that I could always tell in this book exactly what I was looking at. But I usually could, and that is a credit both to Strife’s drawing talent and his ability to tell a story visually.  

The characters are all unique and yet relatable in their own way. As a reader, I changed my opinion about various characters several times. For instance, I found Sebastian to be initially self-righteous and arrogant, but he grew on me. Kaece was not immediately likable, and the author’s decision to always have her say “ya” instead of “you” is something I found rather distracting, but by the time I was halfway in, I felt more for her, on an emotional level, than anyone else in the story. It was the contrast of the tough exterior but vulnerable interior that make her the most intriguing.

Strangely, Rebecca and Alex seem under-developed and ordinary by comparison, and not simply because they are human. Rebecca has all the teenage angst and drama you would expect, all the emotions running wild in a thousand different directions, struggling with self-esteem, confusion over sexual identity, and rebellion against other people’s expectations of her. And her brother, well…He’s simply a precocious 13-year-old wanting to prove his worth and bravery, but in spite of his chapters being illustrated, his story is somewhat one-dimensional. Why don’t these two ever think about their parents, or their home lives? Aren’t they worried about their families or friends? Aren’t they grieved at the notion of never being able to return home? Rebecca engages in self-pity over failed past relationships, but we get no sense of what life had been like for the siblings, beyond that.

Overall, the novel is fast-paced, engaging, and unpredictable. As the story unfolded, I could never tell where it was going, nor what would happen next. There are many unexpected twists and turns. And it’s a bit of an emotional roller coaster as well because the stakes are very high for some of these characters, not only in terms of what may happen to them, but in terms of the revelation of who they really are, and what that means. Some big questions are asked: Does love override duty and loyalty? Do ethics matter in wartime?  Are there some things that you can’t forgive?  

As a gay guy, I didn’t love the lesbian romance aspect of the story (I’ll always prefer stories about dudes), but it was very intense and relatable. Rebecca has some self-loathing that she has to get over, and that’s pretty universal, I think.

Creationists may take issue with an explanation for Earth’s origin other than the one found in the Book of Genesis. I know I did, even though you can easily answer by saying “it’s a fantasy novel, not a theology text”. I don’t know, for some reason it just nagged at me, probably more than it should, like an itch that you can’t reach to scratch. 

But by and large, this is a thoughtful work of fantasy fiction, and full of heart, a labor of love for an author who loves a good story, and who loves the people he’s telling it to.