The Fallout Review: Jenna Ortega Stuns In Deftly Handled School Shooting Drama

Mere weeks after surviving multiple encounters with Ghostface in Scream, Jenna Ortega stands as the survivor of another tragedy – this time, a far too real one – in Megan Park’s directorial debut The Fallout. After winning accolades at last year’s virtual South by Southwest festival, The Fallout arrives on HBO Max today, where it will surely find a wider audience drawn in by Ortega’s rising star power and the timely subject matter. It can be easy to assume a film about a school shooting is exploitative and has nothing new to say, but in Park’s capable hands, this movie is far more than an after school special. Enriched by a profound performance from Ortega, The Fallout is a nuanced take on tragedy that focuses on the difficult question of what comes after.

The film begins with 16-year-old Vada (Ortega) having a perfectly normal day. She’s late for school, she sings in the car alongside her best friend Nick (Will Ropp), and she lends comfort to her younger sister Amelia (Lumi Pollack) when she unexpectedly gets her first period. However, while talking to popular classmate Mia (Maddie Ziegler) in the bathroom, Vada’s life is turned upside down when an active shooter targets her school. Though she emerges physically unscathed, Vada is left a shell of herself in the wake of the tragedy, unable to move on. As she forms a deeper connection with Mia, Vada struggles to cope with her changed world.

Right from the outset, Park makes a smart decision and keeps the shooting offscreen. Instead of witnessing the bloodshed, viewers are kept inside a cramped bathroom stall with Vada and Mia as gunshots and screams sound all around them. The sequence is the hardest to watch in The Fallout, yet at no point does Park do anything to sensationalize the experience, even when a third student (Niles Fitch’s Quinton) who has seen the tragedy joins them. Cinematographer Kristen Correll stays tight on the characters, letting their horror seep into the outside world. If that sounds overwhelming, that’s because it is, but potential audience members shouldn’t be put off by it; Park focuses on the actual events of the shooting only long enough to make viewers understand Vada’s actions for the rest of The Fallout.

Because while she doesn’t see anything or even really knows any of the victims, Vada is irreparably changed by her experience. She spends long periods in bed, either pretending to sleep or mindlessly scrolling through her phone. Her family struggles to get through to her, especially her mother (Julie Bowen) and Amelia. Vada drifts away from Nick, who is suddenly passionate about activism, and bonds with Mia and, on a slightly lesser level, Quinton. As The Fallout settles into Vada’s new normal, it becomes almost plotless in how it merely follows its leading character’s grief. At the same time, Park’s refusal to rush Vada’s recovery lends the story a deeper weight. Trauma is messy, and heavy, and it leaves no easy answers. The same can be said for The Fallout, which doesn’t always probe deeply into Vada’s actions, but also doesn’t need to. As shown through a couple of therapy scenes with Park’s former Secret Life of the American Teenager co-star Shailene Woodley, Vada doesn’t know how to process her emotions, and she doesn’t actually want to.

All of this would fall apart without an actress capable of handling every single emotion that Vada experiences. The Fallout excels in large part because of Ortega, who shoulders the heavy subject matter with grace and scrapes herself raw with this performance. One particularly affecting moment — perhaps second to only the gut -punch ending — sees Vada in therapy slowly coming to terms with what happened. Correll’s camera is close on Ortega’s face, allowing the actress to gradually and effectively express Vada’s feelings not only through her words, but through her expressions as well. Ortega is undoubtedly the MVP of The Fallout, but Bowen and Pollack are also standouts. Pollack in particular really shows up for a later scene between Amelia and Vada that proves to be the beating heart of the film. As the ostensible secondary lead, Ziegler, known to many as one of the child stars of Dance Moms, plays the part of Mia well. However, Mia’s characterization is lacking somewhat, making it one of the weaker parts of The Fallout and Park’s screenplay. Nevertheless, the relationship between her and Vada is sweet in its development, and perfectly shows how difficult circumstances create an understanding outsiders can never hope to replicate.

The Fallout will be characterized by many as a school shooting movie, and while that qualifier isn’t exactly off the mark, it doesn’t encapsulate all that Park has managed to convey here. It revolves around a school shooting, yet it barely mentions the shooter and only takes a handful of seconds to consider his motivations. That isn’t important. What is important is how the survivors are affected by it and how they move on. Grief and trauma don’t provide easy answers and The Fallout doesn’t either. But it does take viewers on a poignant journey right alongside its heroine. It can be heavy, but it can also hold moments of humor and joy. For those not completely worn down by the all-too-real tragedies on the news, The Fallout is worth a watch.

The Fallout is now streaming on HBO Max. It is 96 minutes long and rated R for language throughout, and teen drug and alcohol use.

About The Author

Rachel Labonte
(3420 Articles Published)

Rachel LaBonte is a news, feature, and movie review writer for Screen Rant with a deep passion for film and television. A graduate of Emerson College, she majored in Media Arts Production while specializing in screenwriting. She’s been a writer ever since high school when she realized she was rather good at it and joined as many entertainment news clubs as she could while in school. Most notably, she wrote for Emerson’s website Emertainment Monthly, and one of her film reviews won an Evvy (Emerson’s student awards) for Best Review. Her deep love of movies led to her working at a movie theater for five years, which she loved despite the angry customers. An avid reader who constantly buys books before reading the ones she already owns, Rachel is a huge fan of superheroes (especially of the Marvel variety) and wizards and will likely never be able to catch up on all the movies/TV shows she longs to watch.

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