The debut film from Laura Carreira examines the emotional toll of 21st-century labor through the life of a solitary worker in Glasgow.
In the opening moments of On Falling, a digital symphony sets the tone for a poignant exploration of modern-day isolation. The melancholy soundscape includes beeps that accompany the arrival of workers at a Glasgow online fulfilment center, where their ID badges are scanned. Other beeps are triggered as pickers scan barcodes on items like DIY tools or yoga pants, while a sharper alarm resonates when a picker takes too long to locate their next task. These sounds, devoid of human interaction, serve as the film’s subtle commentary on a detached, mechanized world.
Eventually, the characters begin speaking, but by then, the stage has already been set. The absence of meaningful dialogue speaks volumes, and silence becomes the most powerful element in this haunting narrative about loneliness in the digital age.
Aurora, a 30-something Portuguese picker played with quiet grace by Joana Santos, is the heart of the film. Director Laura Carreira, also Portuguese, brings her first feature to the screen with an acute sense of the emotional voids that define contemporary work life. While Carreira’s vision is unmistakably personal, there are echoes of the British cinematic legacy of social realism, notably through the involvement of Sixteen Films, co-founded by Ken Loach. Loach’s 2019 film Sorry We Missed You comes to mind, with On Falling sharing thematic concerns about the exploitation of workers in the online retail sector. However, whereas Loach’s film operates on anger, Carreira’s work is more somber and introspective.
The story unfolds with a deliberate and spare approach, reminiscent of a haiku in its precision and economy. As Aurora’s life descends into increasing solitude, Carreira’s quiet yet powerful direction illuminates the subtle, often unnoticed effects of a world driven by technology and detachment. The job itself is indifferent, and while the film does not offer an outright condemnation of this system, it serves as a meditation on the modern social network of isolation that such work perpetuates.
By 2025, On Falling argues, social realism remains relevant, but the “social” itself is rapidly deteriorating. The few moments of camaraderie, where characters connect in brief, raucous exchanges, stand in stark contrast to the more common scenes of people silently absorbed in their phones, lost in their digital worlds while physically surrounded by others. In these fleeting, quiet moments, On Falling captures the deep loneliness that underpins much of modern life.
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