When we fall, it can seem impossible to get up. But many times, it is only when we have fallen, when we have lost everything we held onto to keep standing, that we can see and grab onto what we actually need.

In Mari Marchbanks first feature length film, Fall to Grace, we see a collage of people who have fallen or are in the process of falling. Like this year’s Oscar winning Crash, the film is an ensemble piece about a variety of people, their connections, and the interactions that bring their lives together. And, like many of its Indie contemporaries, it is a look at the ugliness of the everyday.

The story takes place in Austin, TX. The characters are neighbors, friends, relatives, and coworkers. And they are just trying to live.

In the Sikorsky household, Edik tries to forge a life for his immigrant family in the land of opportunity. He leaves each morning determined to work hard. But far too often, he ends his day drinking alone and returning home defeated.    

Edik’s son Kristofer also seeks to claim the opportunity he sees around him. He practices to be the star of his new school’s basketball team. He shamelessly flirts with the sexy bad girl across the street. And even if he doesn’t have it all yet, his constant smile tells us that he feels like he does.

But the same is not true for the girl across the street. For Anika, life is no more than yelling, fighting, underhandedness, and loss. Opportunity and hope have lost all meaning, and escape is the only way she knows to live.

Enter a few more friends, a few more neighbors, your fair share of drug dealers and low level organized crime, and you can see why some of the characters have trouble convincing themselves that life is actually worth living.

As the movie goes on, these intersecting lives tug on each other. Some pull each other down. Others push each other away. And as the pushing and pulling rise to a climax, its characters must ask themselves whether they will just keep being pushed, just keep pushing others, or instead, realize that they actually have a choice in the matter.

While Fall to Grace is clearly not a product of big studio money and production support, it rivals and in some ways surpasses many of its bigger budget contemporaries. Its despair and hardship rarely go overboard. Most of its characters respond appropriately and with a realistic intensity to the situations around them. And while the connections that some movies try to make very often come off as contrived, all of the connections in Fall to Grace feel natural, as they would happen, not as they might happen if the stars and planets and all the stoplights in the entire world were aligned correctly.

But the problem with Fall to Grace’s well developed characters, situations, and connections is that they create far too much for its ending to deal with in the short time it is given. Compared to the large portion of the story invested in depicting “average” hard times, the sudden rocket to desperation and just as quickly to hope makes both extremes a bit hard to swallow. In the short transition between extremes, some of the dramatic character arcs come off as slightly unmotivated. And, overall, the ending leaves you wanting more.