On Falling
On Falling
7.294%
The story focuses on Aurora, a Portuguese worker in a Scottish warehouse, navigating loneliness and alienation in an algorithm-driven gig economy as she seeks meaning and connection amidst solitude and workplace confines.
Kevin Ward reviewedJuly 1, 2025
Laura Carreira’s On Falling is a quietly bruising portrait of working-class survival, led by a beautifully restrained performance from Joana Santos as Aurora, a warehouse worker scraping by in a life of constant compromise. Her world is stitched together through forced communal living—carpooling to work, sharing a crowded flat, splitting food costs—and yet, there’s a deep loneliness that follows her everywhere. She moves through life like someone constantly holding their breath.
Carreira keeps things small and observational, letting the grind speak for itself. At work, Aurora is rewarded with candy bars for keeping up her pace, but gets polite nudges when she slips. The job bleeds into everything. She’s asked what she does outside of work, she can’t even answer—it’s like she doesn’t know anymore, like she can’t afford such luxuries or perhaps can’t afford to even think about it.
One of the most quietly devastating scenes comes when her carpool buddy tells her she’s been offered a desk job in Portugal. Aurora doesn’t say anything, doesn’t cry, doesn’t react big. But you can feel everything crash down on her at once—the logistics of how she’ll now get to work, the added costs, the ache of losing a rare connection, and the painful reminder that other people do make it out, while she is still stuck behind. A lovely debut film from Carreira.