Fall Into Me Movie Review

You'd be hard-pressed to find a film more by-the-numbers than Fall Into Me, which covers some well-worn ground on its way to, on the whole, proving itself to be at least a passable romantic comedy.

See how many of these characters, idiosyncracies, and plot points you've heard before. Steven (Ron Menzel) is a geeky school bus driver. Maria (Heidi Fellner) is a gorgeous hospital volunteer. Through innocent omission, Maria comes to believe Steven is terminally ill with a rare kidney disease. He then uses this to convince her to spend more time with him, and they fall in love. But the truth -- that Ron is not a sickly bus driver but rather just a bus driver -- will come out in the end. I correctly guessed the running time at which that would happen within three minutes. The surprise that follows is only a shock if you find everything I've written before to be dazzlingly original.

Tim VandeSteeg wrote and shot this indie flick in Minneapolis, and it has the scrappy feeling of a labor of love shot with virtual unknowns at hip locations that would be happy to provide their services in exchange for a mention in the credits. The good news is that the film isn't all bad. Fellner is a decent enough actress and Menzel, though initially grating and clearly miscast as a romantic lead, eventually comes across with enough goofy charm to hold our interest.

It's too bad then that the script is so blatantly obvious that we can't help but roll our eyes with each scene. Even the most casual of moviegoers will quite literally see every turn of the action coming well in advance. The only mystery in the movie is the one that's simply left unanswered at the end, and for fear of spoiling it for the one or two of you who've never seen a movie before I won't reveal it. Just let me ask aloud: After that trip to Paris, then what happens?