On Falling

★★★★ “This is a very impressive debut.” The Guardian

In director Laura Carreira’s feature debut, Portuguese immigrant Aurora (Joana Santos) life is is shaped by the demands of the scanner on her wrist, as she travels the endless shelves of an online retailer’s warehouse. When the opportunity to become a care worker arrives, the process of escaping from the gig economy pushes her to her limit.

Emerging from Ken Loach’s Sixteen Films stable, there is a similar focus on the punishing effects of capitalism on the lives of well-rounded characters. That said, Laura Carreira demonstrates in her debut that she has a genuine visual flair, as well as elegantly balancing a broader social problem against a character who experiences it as an individual with her own selfhood fully rounded.