The Fallout Tackles Trauma From The Lens Of Generation Z
The Fallout, directed by Megan Park, made its debuted at Sundance Film Festival 2021. Led by Jenna Ortega, it centers around the trauma Vada deals with after experiencing a school shooting. I spoke with Jenna Ortega, Megan Park, and Maddie Ziegler about The Fallout, including tackling the film’s authentic voice and the themes of dealing with trauma.
Megan Park has been transitioning from acting to writing and directing over the last few years, but The Fallout was her first time doing it in a feature capacity. She wanted to use her voice to brings more aware to the topic of school shootings. “It came out of this frustration at the situation for young people in America,” Park told me in an interview at SXSW Film Festival 2021. “I was pretty nervous to take a stab at it because I was Canadian. I hadn't been through something like this so I was really worried about getting it right. Eventually I reached a point where I just couldn’t stop thinking about it. I felt like I have a very clear perspective on how I wanted to tell the story so I went ahead and did it.”
Park did an incredible job of tapping into the Gen Z voice and talked about how important it was to check in with that generation when writing the story. “I love movies like that, like The Florida Project or Eighth Grade. Eighth Grade is another example — like that director’s a dude who wasn’t that age — but I thought that film was extremely authentic,” she said. “I certainly spoke to people that age was was like, ‘Does this track for you? Is this how you would speak? Is this how you would do that?’ I also just tried to tap into the 16 or 17 year old in me as I was writing it and just try to keep it as authentic as possible.”
The Fallout explores how people deal with trauma in different ways. Vada shuts down, Mia turns to alcohol, while Nick (Will Ropp) turns to activism. “The pressures of social media do feel uniquely specific to Generation Z and I think there’s a balance of figuring out who you are in real life versus who you are online,” said Park. “I didn’t have that pressure as a young person, but it certainly feels like a very prevalent pressure that whether you have a large following or an average following how you use your social media platform and your online presence is something that is very much on the forefront of Generation Z's mind.”
When it came to taking on the roles of Vada and Mia, Jenna Ortega and Maddie Ziegler met together several times before filming to really get comfortable with each other. “It was really nice to have Jenna and how we created that bond before we started,” Ziegler told me. “[It helped] feel like we had each other and we knew even if we have to go into this heavy scene we're there with one another. We got each other. It was really nice and Megan made it such a safe environment for us to work every day.”
The Fallout hits HBO Max on January 27.
