''Fallen'' is a 2016 romantic

fantasy Fantasy is a genre of speculative fiction that involves supernatural or Magic (supernatural), magical elements, often including Fictional universe, imaginary places and Legendary creature, creatures. The genre's roots lie in oral traditions, ...

drama film In film and television, drama is a category or genre of narrative fiction (or semi-fiction) intended to be more serious than humorous in tone. The drama of this kind is usually qualified with additional terms that specify its particular ...

directed by Scott Hicks. It is based on the 2009 novel of same name by

Lauren Kate Lauren Kate (born March 21, 1981) is an American author of adult and young adult fiction. Thus far she has published fourteen novels and one novella. Her books have been translated into over thirty languages, have sold more than eleven million ...

. The film stars

Addison Timlin Addison Timlin (born June 29, 1991) is an American actress. She played Jami Lerner in '' The Town That Dreaded Sundown'' (2014), Colleen Lunsford in '' Little Sister'' (2016) and Sasha Bingham in Showtime's ''Californication''. Career Timlin m ...

Jeremy Irvine Jeremy William Fredric Smith (born 18 June 1990), known professionally as Jeremy Irvine, is an English actor. He made his film debut when Steven Spielberg chose him to star in the epic war film '' War Horse'' (2011) and has since starred in fil ...

Harrison Gilbertson Harrison Sloan Gilbertson (born 29 June 1993) is an Australian actor. Beginning his career as a stage actor, he is known for his role in the 2014 blockbuster film ''Need for Speed (film), Need for Speed''. Early life Harrison Sloan Gilbertson w ...

, and

Joely Richardson Joely Kim Richardson (born 9 January 1965) is a British actress. She is notable for her roles as Julia McNamara in the FX drama series '' Nip/Tuck'' (2003–2010) and Katherine Parr in the Showtime series ''The Tudors'' (2010). Her credits in ...

. The film was released on November 10, 2016 in certain countries including Malaysia, Philippines and Singapore by Lotus Entertainment. Released to theaters in the United States on September 22, 2017, by

Relativity Media Relativity Media, LLC is an American independent media company founded in 2004 by Lynwood Spinks and Ryan Kavanaugh. The company brokered film finance deals and later branched into film production and other entertainment ventures. The company ...

, the film was a critical and commercial failure.

Plot

Lucinda "Luce" Price is sent to Sword and Cross Academy for troubled young teens after she is blamed for the death of a boy named Trevor who perishes in a fire started by mysterious shadows that Luce sees after kissing him. Luce feels cursed, blaming herself for Trevor’s death. Upon arriving at her new school, Luce meets various students, including Cameron “Cam” Briel, who has taken an interest in her; Arriane Alter, who takes Luce under her wing; Molly Zane, who harasses Luce; Pennyweather "Penn” Van Syckle-Lockwood, who befriends Luce; and Daniel Grigori, a brooding boy to whom Luce is instantly attracted. She also meets Miss Sophia, a religious studies teacher. During a session, the school psychiatrist tells Lucinda she can leave if she takes antipsychotics. During detention, picking up trash, Luce is almost crushed by a falling statue of an avenging angel. Later, Cam flirts with Luce before inviting her to a party in the woods. At the party, Luce is attracted to Cam, but can not shake the feeling of a deep and unusual connection to Daniel, despite his attempts to brush her off. Molly shows up and proceeds to harass and almost kill Luce before Arriane intervenes. As Luce leaves, she sees the “shadows” again. Luce overhears Miss Sophia telling Daniel that Cam may have been behind the angel statue almost falling on Luce. She expresses fear for Luce because she is unbaptized. The two realize that Luce is listening to them, and Daniel follows Luce outside. They walk together and he admits that during class he was working on a graphic novel. In the story a boy and a girl are in love with each other, but are cursed such that each time they kiss, the girl dies; she then reincarnates, meets the boy (who never ages or changes) 17 years later, and they fall in love and kiss again, only for the cycle to repeat endlessly every 17 years. Cam takes Luce to a club on her birthday and they kiss, only to be violently interrupted by Daniel, who yells that he had told Cam to stay away from Luce, and accuses him of still being “with Lucifer.” Luce flees and tells Penn what happened, confiding that she suspects Cam and she have been reincarnated. Penn and her friend Todd sneak into the library with Luce and search the computer with a facial recognition tool; they discover a photo from 1854 of Daniel and Luce, and Luce again has a flash of memory, seeing herself and Daniel posing for the photo in 1854. As Penn leaves to retrieve the photo from the printer, Luce sees the "shadows" again. Another mysterious fire breaks out; it engulfs the library and kills Todd. Daniel rescues an unconscious Luce from the fire. Later, Luce finds Daniel on a roof top, and he reveals that they are the boy and girl from his graphic novel story. Daniel further reveals that he is a fallen angel, which explains his immortality. The two kiss, but Cam appears, telling Luce that because she has not been baptised, Lucifer will come for her. He tries to convince Luce to pick him instead of Daniel, but Daniel whisks Luce away and takes her to Miss Sophia, leaving to fight Cam and stop Lucifer from coming for Luce. As the two fight, Cam reveals that he was not the one behind Luce's murders; meanwhile, Miss Sophia kills Penn. Luce screams, which brings Daniel to her aid and he protects her from Miss Sophia, who is revealed to be the one actually trying to kill Luce. Miss Sophia justifies her murders by explaining that, with Luce gone, Daniel would have been forced to choose a side and order would have been restored. The shadows appear behind Miss Sophia as she is talking and consume her. Daniel explains to a shaken Luce that her being unbaptized would make her next death permanent; Miss Sophia thought this would cause Daniel to choose Heaven. He tells her that Lucifer will indeed come for her, and that he must take her somewhere safe. They declare their love for each other as they leave to find safe haven from Lucifer.

Cast and characters

as Lucinda "Luce" Price *

as Daniel Grigori *

as Cameron "Cam" Briel *

Daisy Head Daisy Head (born 17 March 1991) is an English actress. She played Grace in the American drama series '' Guilt'', Amy Stevenson in BBC One's drama '' The Syndicate'', Kate Bottomley in the third season of Hulu series '' Harlots'', Genya Safin i ...

as Arriane Alter *

Lola Kirke Lola Kirke (born September 27, 1990) is an American actress, singer and author. She was born in London and raised in New York City. She starred in the 2015 film '' Mistress America'' and the Amazon Studios television series '' Mozart in the Jun ...

as Pennyweather "Penn" Van Syckle-Lockwood *

Sianoa Smit-McPhee Sianoa Smit-McPhee is an Australian actress and singer. From 2005 until 2007, she played Bree Timmins in the Australian soap opera ''Neighbours''. She starred in '' As the Bell Rings'', the HBO series '' Hung'', and '' The Kettering Incident''. ...

as Molly Zane * Hermione Corfield as Gabrielle "Gabbe" Givens *

Malachi Kirby Malachi Kirby is a British actor and writer. He gained prominence through his roles in the 2016 ''Roots'' remake and the ''Black Mirror'' episode "Men Against Fire". He won a BAFTA for his performance in '' Small Axe'': ''Mangrove'' (2020). Kirby ...

as Roland Sparks *

as Sophia Bliss *

Juliet Aubrey Juliet Emma Aubrey (born 17 December 1966) is a British actress; She won the 1995 BAFTA TV Award for Best Actress for playing Dorothea in the BBC serial '' Middlemarch'' (1994). She is also known for her role as Helen Cutter in the ITV series ...

as Doreen Price * Paul Slack as Harry Price *

Leo Suter Leo Suter (born 26 September 1993) is an English actor. His credits include '' Bad Education'' (2012), ''Victoria'' (2017), ''Ransom'' (2017), ''Clique'' (2018), '' Beecham House'' (2019), ''Sanditon'' (2019), ''Intelligence'' (2020), '' The Libe ...

as Trevor Beckman * Chris Ashby as Todd Hammond * Auguszta Tóth as Todd Hammond's Mother * David Schaal as Randy *

Norma Kuhling Norma Zea Kuhling (born 1990) is an American actress. She is known for her roles as Dr. Ava Bekker in the NBC medical drama series ''Chicago Med'' and as Jo Mitchel in the 2019 independent film '' Fourteen''. Career Kuhling's early roles includ ...

as Rachel * Richard Ryan as Coach * Rick Lipton as Detectives

Production

Development

Walt Disney Pictures Walt Disney Pictures is an American film Film production company, production company and subsidiary of Walt Disney Studios (division), the Walt Disney Studios, a division of Disney Entertainment, which is owned by the Walt Disney Company. The st ...

initially purchased rights to the series, excluding ''Unforgiven''. By mid-2013, Disney withdrew from the project, leaving all production to Lotus Entertainment.

Pre-production

Pre-production began in September 2013, while filming began in February 2014 in

Budapest Budapest is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns of Hungary, most populous city of Hungary. It is the List of cities in the European Union by population within city limits, tenth-largest city in the European Union by popul ...

Hungary Hungary is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Spanning much of the Pannonian Basin, Carpathian Basin, it is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine to the northeast, Romania to the east and southeast, Serbia to the south, Croatia and ...

. Production was completed in April 2016, but the film was two years in pre-production. Origo Film Group studios in Budapest were chosen for the film's production, work on the "angels" flight scenes and the construction of exterior areas.

Casting

On August 16, 2013, two main characters were announced by writer

on their website.

was cast as Lucinda "Luce" Price and

would play Daniel Grigori. On September 25, 2013 it was officially announced that

would play Cameron "Cam" Briel, the third main character. On January 19, 2014 it was officially that

would play "Molly", the antagonist.

Filming

After the change of producers, the producers and the director Scott Hicks settled upon

as the primary location for production. Tura Castle, stood in for the main enclosure that would conform to Sword & Cross, together with the castle Wenckheim-kastély (Szabadkígyós) also located in Hungary. Subsequent filming was set to commence in September, but was delayed until February 9, 2014 in

. There were five months of filming plus two extra weeks of voice recording between the end of July and August.

Marketing and release

By the end of 2016, the trailer for ''Fallen'' leaked in the Philippines, the first country to be chosen for the premiere of the film, with low resolution and poor quality of image and sound. Lotus Entertainment re-edited the trailer, modifying small scenes and include credits at the end after the leak. ''Fallen'' initially did not have a

distribution company Distribution may refer to: Mathematics *Distribution (mathematics), generalized functions used to formulate solutions of partial differential equations *Probability distribution, the probability of a particular value or value range of a varia ...

. Later

, acquired the film, after several days of negotiation. The premiere took place at the Philippines. In December 2016, the film was promoted at the Brazilian Comic-Con Experience in

São Paulo São Paulo (; ; Portuguese for 'Paul the Apostle, Saint Paul') is the capital of the São Paulo (state), state of São Paulo, as well as the List of cities in Brazil by population, most populous city in Brazil, the List of largest cities in the ...

, where ''Fallen'' had its own panel. A press conference took place with

(writer of Fallen) and

(Lucinda Price). During the event the Brazilian trailer was shown for the fans. The film was released in the United States on September 22, 2017 by

. It then was made available on digital platforms on September 8, 2017, and to DVD on October 10, 2017.

Reception

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Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review aggregator, review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee ...

, the film has an approval rating of 7% based on 14 reviews, with an average rating of 3.2/10.

Sequels

In December 2014,

announced that ''Torment'', the second installment in the ''Fallen'' book series, was in development. It is unknown whether the last two novels, ''Passion'' and ''Rapture'', and the spin-off novels ''Fallen in Love'' and ''Unforgiven'', were planned to be adapted.

References

External links

* * {{Lauren Kate 2010s adventure films 2016 romantic drama films 2016 films 2010s romantic fantasy films 2010s teen drama films 2010s teen romance films American fantasy adventure films American romantic drama films American romantic fantasy films American teen drama films American teen romance films American fantasy drama films Films based on American novels Films based on young adult literature Films directed by Scott Hicks Films scored by Mark Isham Films shot in Budapest Hungarian drama films Hungarian fantasy films Hungarian romance films Relativity Media films Teen adventure films 2010s teen fantasy films 2010s English-language films 2010s American films English-language Hungarian films English-language romantic drama films English-language romantic fantasy films English-language adventure films