The Fallout
Director: Megan Park
Year Released: 2021
Rating: 2.0
After surviving a shooting at their high school, tomboy Vada (Jenna Ortega) and Instagram "celebrity" Mia (Maddie Ziegler) form a close bond with one another, choosing to retreat into their own little world of drugs and binge watching videos on YouTube while their other classmates turn into activists. Both leads are excellent and do a fantastic job going through all of the emotional trauma, but the movie only has one "mode" and that's for sadness: they drag themselves around, Vada does Ecstasy at school (and has a Wolf of Wall Street moment on the staircase), they "experiment" ... meanwhile Vada's parents couldn't be more understanding. The HBO show Euphoria is a fairly clear influence, but there isn't really a "plot" ... just a lot of hand-wringing (let's hope therapy with Shailene helps).