The Falling is about mass hysteria at a girl’s school. It stars Game of Thrones’ Arya Stark, Maisie Williams, as the intense and troubled Lydia, struggling with problems at home, rebellion at school, and particularly her intense feelings for her best friend Abbie.
It all comes to a head with an outbreak of fainting at the school, led by Lydia. It starts out as perhaps extreme attention-seeking on her part, but the craze develops a life of its own.
The unique aspect of The falling is the non-judgemental tone. Clearly women understand this kind of frenzy more than men, no matter how well-meaning.
These are implicitly female adolescent urges that manifest themselves – at the harmless end of the spectrum - in outbreaks of enthusiasm for One Direction and the Twilight series, and at the other end, I suppose, the Witch Trials of Salem.
