Women on the brink

It doesn't matter, because this is a soap opera — all hanging vines, calm murky water and golden sunsets — that doesn't come close to saying anything new or insightful about natural law, class, poverty or independent women, convinced of its own depth though it may be. The fast-emergent Edgar-Jones does her best but can't really balance the film's ludicrousness (the murder) and its disturbing, underserved setup (her childhood).

Fall, on the other hand, has an inherent, deep understanding of the ludicrousness of its tense, high-wire (literally) two-hander, which works despite its hoary familiarity. Here is a prime example of how doing something with style and a singular focus can overcome such familiarity.

After a tragic climbing accident takes the life of her husband, Becky (Grace Caroline Currey) spends a year drunk, isolated and weepy. But then her best friend and adventure vlogger Hunter (Virginia Gardner) drags her out into the middle of the Mojave Desert to climb a derelict, 600-meter TV tower. They get up. It goes wrong. They get stuck. The film is a static survival thriller whose primary goal is to create white-knuckle tension and cause vertigo (it was shot in IMAX, so mission accomplished).

Director Scott Mann's credits are heavy on B-movie junk that would have gone straight to video back in the 1980s, and straight to streaming now, except that when distributor Lionsgate saw the final product cinemas suddenly became an option. Rightly so. Becky and Hunter are unappealing enough as characters. Hence their grim fates are justified — a fact that puts the focus squarely on a strong concept backed by the seamless visual effects and CGI to make it fly.