Fall

By: Amos Lassen

"Fall"
The Sins of the Father
Amos Lassen
In Niagara Falls, Father Sam is to examine his past behavior when he receives a letter from a man accusing him of sexual misconduct some 40 years earlier. Writer/director Terrance Odette's film of sexual abuse in the church introduces us to Father Sam (Michael Murphy), as he tends to the members of his flock in his small Niagara Falls congregation. Numbers of those attending the church are dwindling and some of the parishioners think that the church is now out of date. Father Sam's services have become fair reminders that the Church might be out of touch and Sam is an unlikely Father who perhaps knows too well the realm of damnation feared by the faithful. He carries the moral and existential burden that comes with guiding the faith of so many believers (and would-be believers) and his many sleepless nights reveal a man grappling with many of the same questions of the afterlife as his parishioners. Reza, a gay man, charges Father Sam with being a "cafeteria Catholic" who may picks and choose which lessons of the Bible to teach to his congregation. Father Sam is a pragmatist who cares about atoning for his own sins just as he cares about keeping the church relevant to contemporary attitudes.
Those very sins that Father Sam has to deal with come upon us early in the film when his past comes to play from a letter he receives from Sault Ste. Marie about a night spent by the Father's side and that alludes to indiscretion, but it makes no explicit charge other than that Father Sam shared a special bond with this younger male correspondent. The letter raises the question of whether a lifetime of service can make good on one past transgression, no matter how bad the crime and how fruitful the penance.
Just as Father Sam is guiding a couple (Michael Luckett and Kate Boland) towards marriage and sees that there is a lapse in fidelity from one of the two and realizes that the love that they share could be damaged if this was to get out and he finds himself at a moral crossroads. As Sam, Michael Murphy gives a subtle performance of a conflicted clergyman with a caring yet beleaguered grace. It's obvious that Father Sam isn't just going through the motions as he prepares for each mass and guides his parishioners, but there is weariness and anxiety that creeping into his character showing us a man who is uncomfortable with his faith probably because he believes so earnestly in the consequences he may face. We see that his future is put into question by the moral weight he carries. Director Odette lets the complexity of Father Sam's questioning develop in a deceptively simple story that puts the priest on several return trips up north to the Sault and contrasts his past with his present. Father Sam's character is directly in the crosshairs only once when one of his visits leads him to confront Catherine, the sister of the man with whom he allegedly had a past relationship. This confrontation brings an explosive performance from Suzanne Clément as Catherine whose bitterness and anger makes the silence of their encounter palpably damning. Catherine lays a charge on Father Sam face-to-face with him and we begin to seriously wonder if Father Sam is shaken by his grief, shock, or exposure; however, the weight that Catherine carries from her brother's burden provokes the audience to question the Sam's past, even if his actions were as seemingly innocent as he so believes. Could it be that his sin is not criminal misconduct, but, rather, abandonment?
As Father Sam revisits his own morality as he guides the faithful that while guiding those of his faithful, we wonder if it is possible for one to fully escape one's sins or atone for them completely. Set during a snowy Canadian winter, we get a sense of both coldness and innocence of Sam's crisis of faith. The final shot in near-blinding snow and ice, gives us a provocatively ambiguous image of a man who is either damned or redeemed.