It’s easy to draw thematic and experiential parallels between generations. When we’re teenagers, our parents recount their high school memories, regaling us with unsolicited dating advice, reliving their first jobs just as we begin ours. However, the teenage experience of Generation Z is riddled with events that set us apart from our parents’ generations and any predating the last years of the 20th century.
We grew up with the term “school shooting.” While not all Gen Z’ers are directly affected by school shootings, we feel the reverberations. We practice adjusted drills, named “lockdown” or “lockout,” as if acknowledging the possibility of a shooting in the title would summon misfortune. We feel our breaths catch every time the intercom blares haphazardly.
For this reason, the new movie The Fallout was promoted as “the first defining movie of Gen Z.”
The film opens with 16-year-old Vada (Jenna Ortega) getting ready for school, driving to class drinking iced coffee, and chanting to rap music with her best friend Nick (Will Ropp). It is scenes like these, peppered throughout the movie, that attempt to pay homage to Gen Z, or at least the stereotypical version of it.
Once at school, Vada is sitting in class when she gets an SOS text from her sister Amelia (Lumi Pollack). After excusing herself, Vada calls Amelia in the hallway, concerned. Amelia is crying and reveals she just got her period and doesn’t know what to do. Relieved, Vada promises her sister they will talk more at home. Before returning to the classroom, Vada goes to the restroom, and it is here the most recognizable scene from the trailer begins.
Vada sees popular dancer Mia (Maddie Ziegler) applying makeup and comments on how she doesn’t need it. That’s when the first shots sound. Mia and Vada run into a stall, perching on the toilet seat, so their feet aren’t visible. One of Mia’s heels slips into the bowl as they cover their stilted breathing with their hands.
The two teenagers nearly scream when another student, Quinton (Niles Fitch), stumbles into the bathroom looking for cover. As they examine his shirt soaked in blood, Quinton just says, “my brother.” This happens within the first 15 minutes of The Fallout.
The rest of the hour-and-thirty-minute movie portrays different ways of coping with trauma and death, each specific to a different character. Vada spirals, not wanting to worry her parents by showing how much the shooting affected her. She finds solace in Mia’s company, as well as through her expensive red wine. Because Mia’s dads are prestigious art dealers who are absent for the entirety of the movie, Vada and Mia take advantage of this, blaring music in Mia’s sauna, rolling joints by her pool, and sharing their darkest thoughts during sleepovers.
While Vada’s best friend Nick immediately returns to school and starts advocating for gun control at marches, Vada struggles to go back. Mia chooses to remain homeschooled while Vada returns at the request of her parents. On her first day back, she is scanned by metal detectors and doesn’t use the restroom for the entire day, afraid to go back to the bathroom and relive the shooting.
Rushing out of school at dismissal to relieve herself, Vada startles when someone steps on an aluminum can, thinking it’s a gunshot. As she wets herself, she swears under her breath, tears streaming down her face. The next day, Vada takes ecstasy to endure school which provides some humorous moments of her moving in slow motion through the halls.
Similarly, humor is found in the scenes of Mia and Vada getting high. They joke as they roll joints with Vada describing one as being a “curvy queen.” After smoking, while Vada paces back and forth on the pool deck ranting about animal poaching, Mia floats in the pool, seemingly staring up at nothing.
The on-screen chemistry between Ortega and Ziegler is best seen here with Vada declaring things like, “it makes me wonder, can I really trust this meme?” and, “I feel like this weed is making me feel a bit chatty. I’m not even sad anymore, I’m just chatty.”
At one point, Vada stops pacing, coming down from her high before eventually saying, “I hate weed” and rolling into the pool. As a whole, Ortega’s performance is incredible, portraying teen angst, survivors’ guilt, and evolving sexuality flawlessly. She and Pollack, who plays her on-screen sister, Amelia, are the stars of this movie, their banter undeniably sister-like.
Shailene Woodley, who plays Vada’s therapist, is a bit disappointing in this film. Though she is listed as part of the starring cast, she only appears in approximately two scenes and does nothing to advance the plot.
Ziegler’s performance as Mia was by far her best work to date, but it is still hard to picture her as an actress. In fact, she was basically playing herself: a famous, wealthy dancer. I was most intrigued by the direction from Megan Park. Known for her roles in shows like The Secret Life of the American Teenager, The Fallout was her directorial debut.
In some ways, it shows. The movie doesn’t have a defined dramatic arch. Most of the action happens at the beginning, and there is little build through the middle. Frustratingly, The Fallout ends abruptly with many storylines left unfinished and conflicts unresolved. I can sort of appreciate the significance behind this. Life is so precious and it can end when you least expect it, but the rest of the movie didn’t have the same level of thoughtfulness to make this creative choice feel purposeful.
The music, composed by FINNEAS, is hauntingly beautiful and perfectly attuned to the mood of the film. My favorite moment that displays this comes towards the end when Vada and her father (John Ortiz) sit on a grassy hill staring at the ocean.
“Life’s fucking hard,” Vada says. “I’m sorry for saying fucking.”
”‘No you’re right, life is fucking hard,’” her dad replies.
“I can’t fucking feel anything!” she screams at the waves, tears in her eyes. Then, the music swells in a minor key but contains an air of hopefulness.
As a Gen Z’er, I didn’t feel connected to this movie because of the Megan Thee Stallion music and the Air Force 1’s worn by the characters. I felt related to because of moments like this. Because though this scene contains only a few words, a complex, shared sentiment breaks through.
Despite my initial skepticism, The Fallout portrays a slice of the Gen Z experience with candor and compassion. It’s a reminder that we all cope with our grief in different ways. We should allow ourselves and others grace.
Still, I hope this doesn’t become the defining movie of my generation. I hope our pain will push us to continue advocating for our futures. I have to believe we will be defined as more than the “social media” or “school shooting generation.”
As Vada reflects, “Let’s say you die tomorrow, what if you die sad because you regret not saying what you were going to say?” I hope our struggles empower us to find this kind of bravery and imagine a brighter tomorrow.
So solid