(AD's note: This is a very comprehensive post, please read the post in it's entirety & make sure to check out the corresponding 'movie stills' at the writer's blog!)
Excerpt of: At the Movies - Falling Down - Review via The Unapologetic Mexican by Nezua.
FALLING DOWN is a story (supposedly) about the decline of America as seen through the eyes of an "average," middle-aged, hard-working, suburban/outer city White man. It works on a few levels. At times I will speak of a conscious narrative and an unconscious one. The Conscious Narrative, as I use the phrase, will take notes on the cinematic and narrative elements that add up to show us a man breaking down much as his society is. He is a part of that breakdown as well as a cause of it as well as a reaction to it. Bill Foster is on the edge of both madness and awareness. He is meeting the ultimate disillusioning and disenchantment and dissolution of the American Dream, to which he gave full and total allegiance. He is also losing his mind.
The Unconscious Narrative, as I use the phrase, is not always unconsciously wielded, but sometimes I think it is. What I mean by this is that under and along with the first narrative I speak of, there are the messages that women are superficial, weak, ineffective creatures; that Blacks are criminals, pawns, and a threat to America's fiber; that Asians are either smart and by the side of the White Male, or Otherly conniving overcharging storeowners (also weak and easily dominated); that Latinos are thugs and women-haters, also a threat to America's fiber and cultural makeup; the usual nasty hype about Gays; that a privileged attitude is normal, that misogyny is normal, and some others. At times this is purposely achieved. And I offer the benefit of the doubt to these writers that at other times they are just writing women, for example, as they think of them and see them.
The front cover lets us know that our protagonist is "an ordinary man at war with the everyday world." "Ordinary man" is key, as is "the everyday world."
The back cover blurb sums up the theme as "Are we falling apart?" and tells us the protagonist is"slipping over the edge" and "ready to get even" with the "pressures of big-city life" that "can anger everyone."
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