Instead, Ben has a Meet Cute with robbery, and it sends him down a suspense-deprived path of criminality.īen gets the idea that he can support his family illegally when he walks in on a real estate agent’s illicit tryst in the house she’s showing. Had he simply told the truth and either asked Susan to try a temporarily return to the workforce, or borrowed money from his snooty father in law, this movie would be over in 15 minutes. “After the Fall” attempts to present Ben as a bastion of self-righteous honesty, but remember, he’s been lying to his wife since the opening credits. After convincingly begging for his job, Ben is shown the door.īen lost his job because he thought everyone he investigated was honest, a plot point that could have yielded satisfying results had it been explored. “You don’t even work here anymore!” Ben’s boss tells him after Ben shows up with useless new facts about a case.

Instead, he researches closed cases in the hopes that his employer will rehire him. He is never seen actively looking for a job, nor does it once cross his mind that his ruse will be discovered. The home improvement loan Ben took out for this watery deathtrap drives the plot toward crime and attempted suicide.Įvery morning, Ben fakes going to an insurance adjuster job from which he has been fired. The camera imbues the pool with all manner of symbolism, first by the dreamy shots of Ben and his kids’ naked limbs flailing about underwater, then later in a sequence where Ben attempts to chlorine himself to death.

Ben Scanlon ( Wes Bentley) installed the pool in the hopes it would raise the property values on the New Mexico home he shares with his wife, Susan ( Vinessa Shaw) and kids. As in Malick’s work, water is a common visual motif in “After the Fall,” except here it is represented by that symbol of suburban privilege, the swimming pool.

After the fall ben rhodes review