The Cell Director Is Back With The Fall

Newly and and not a bit obnoxiously single-named director Tarsem (née Tarsem Singh) appears finally to have crawled out of post-production/distributor hell with his second movie, The Fall, thanks to the help of David Fincher and Spike Jonze.

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I still remember The Cell as a fairly conventional speculative-fiction thriller draped in absolutely beautiful set designs, and the result was far more entertaining than it had any right to be. As an aside, it is also one of only two movies I’ve seen in which I liked Jennifer Lopez.

I’m glad to see this is finally getting released, even if so many years after its festival premiere. I do, however, have a sneaking suspicion that the unremarkable plotting of The Cell is the only lifeline which kept the audience from visually drowning in a sea of red and purple silk ribbons. Now that he’s unchained from a studio script, I anticipate Tarsem has created something without even that narrative link to reality. That could be either a very good thing or a very bad thing.