A Fall from Grace is a film that features several different worldviews that are shared by the characters of the picture. The plot built around the case of a serious crime serves as a pretext for the director to reveal the attitude of his characters to the fundamental concepts of life. Christian faith and ethical principles play a significant role in motivating the protagonist. Faith in God appears in the picture as a kind of ethical criterion, according to which the audience can better understand the inner world of each of the heroes.
It is already obvious from the opening scene that the problem of the Christian faith plays a symbolic role in this film. The woman standing on the cornice is clearly in a critical spiritual condition. “There’s nothing… Nothing!“ declares a woman on the verge of suicide, which is possibly intended to show the meaninglessness of life without the presence of God in it (Swinton & Perry, 0:00:38). The first dialogue of the film between her and Jordan, a police officer, is subtextually devoted to the question of the actual presence of the divine in life.
The title of the film is a play on words in relation to the main character – Grace Waters, accused of murdering her husband, as well as a key to the semantic codes of the film. Grace, as the name suggests, is deprived of God’s grace for her mortal sin. Consequently, the main focus of this film is on the problem of Christian belief and guilt.
The married couple, Jordan and Jasmine, who are at the heart of the film’s plot mechanism, are both servants of the law. Jasmine, as the script suggests, works as a public defender who cleverly negotiates deals with defendants to ease their sentences. They embody human justice that seeks to impart a systemic logic to which the Grace case is not exposed. Jasmine’s logic is as direct as the logic of the law – Grace’s recognition means guilt and, accordingly, full responsibility. However, Jasmine at first refuses to understand that such a worldview oversimplifies the picture.
Jasmine’s unwillingness to be more humane is eventually proven to be understandable. It is explained in the scene of a frank conversation with her husband when she admits that she is disappointed and outraged by human nature from the moment she entered the practice. She is so frustrated that she does not see the point in showing compassion, a key parameter in adhering to Christian ethics.
Grace, who committed a crime, is caught in a vice between her own worldview and justice. She cannot deny her guilt, since this is required by her faith and conscience, despite the fact that this threatens the elderly woman with life imprisonment. Interestingly, Jasmine, who’s calling is law, is faced with a more cynical member of the legal system, who threatens to execute Grace if she doesn’t make a deal. Such cruelty of the law, as well as the scene of Grace’s tears, which she has not seen on any criminal, make her try to understand the case in detail.
The details that Jasmine delves into, in particular the story of Grace’s friend Sarah, give us an idea of Grace as a multifaceted character who went through certain stages before ending up in prison in a broken emotional state. Sarah here serves as the plot engine, but she is also a character who, in the first act of the movie, seemingly wants Grace to be more carefree and open. “You could go on ChristiansDateOnline.com,” she says, teasingly encouraging Grace’s desire to meet new people after being disappointed in her first marriage (Swinton & Perry, 0:21:35). This remark also gives us an idea of the morality of Grace, since for her the religious preferences of the future partner are obviously fundamental.
Grace’s story, which Jasmine ultimately wants from her, turns her life upside down, destroying her in the process. “When you wake up, you don’t know that today will change your life… end it,” tells Grace about the day she met Shannon (Swinton & Perry, 0:26:38). She speaks slowly, and at this time the viewer feels a huge difference between Grace as she is in prison and the one that is shown in the flashback scenes.
The very scene of meeting Shannon at the art gallery seems at first innocent, but some phrases, interpreted in the context of the entire film, have the role of a bad omen. “What do you know about shadows and light?” asks Shannon to Grace, while taking off his sunglasses, thus implying that he represents a dark beginning in the symbolism of this film (Swinton & Perry, 0:28:00). Moreover, in this scene, we see how the African semantics connects the two heroes. Grace is fascinated by African history and mythology, while Shannon was directly in Africa and brought a necklace from there. As a result, African art becomes a connecting element, an image of their romance that will subsequently be the key to a twist in her investigation at the end of the film.
The sudden plot twists that follow, such as Shannon and Sarah’s false identities and kinship ties, signal that not only faith is important in this film, but also human trust. The plot is structured in such a way that Grace perceives Shannon’s appearance in her life as a perfect coincidence, something that could have happened through a divine invasion. However, behind this, as a result, lies a cunning human plan that exploits Grace’s gullibility and her faith in people. “I don’t know why men seem to have such a problem with being honest” states Shannon on their first date (Swinton & Perry, 0:36:34). He is subliminally accentuating his false morality and diverting Grace’s attention from the fact that he was interested in her ex-husband’s financial affairs.
It is noteworthy that Shannon, although attending a Baptist church with Grace, does it reluctantly, only to give her even greater confidence in him. Grace is upset by this, but her belief that Shannon was sent to her by God overshadows the fact that he himself is not religious at all. They disagree on the main issue, the issue of faith, which is a symbol of the lack of real trust between them that also speaks of the maliciousness of Shannon’s intentions.
Thus, interpreting the characters’ motivations and detailed analysis of their cues demonstrates that faith and trust are the main issues on which the film is focused. Grace feels that her faith is undermined by the way reality has treated her, by the fact that her trust has been used, and nearly ready to be punished for that. Jasmine initially loses belief in her life’s work but restores trust in people, and thanks to her newfound faith, she eventually saves Grace from an unfair sentence. The director shows that faith in a person is important, but blind trust can be painful and even fatal. It seems that the moral of the film is that one must soberly look at the events around and understand that a seemingly divine sign may actually be a devil in disguise.
Reference
Swinton, M. E. (Producer), & Perry, T. (Director). (2020). A Fall from Grace [Motion Picture]. United States: Netflix.
Swinton, M. E. (Producer), & Perry, T. (Director). (2020). A Fall from Grace [Motion Picture]. United States: Netflix.