Sneha Jaiswal (Twitter | Instagram)
Watching Netflix’s ‘Fall for Me’ a day after Prime Video’s ‘The Map That Leads to You’ might’ve worked in the former’s favor, because it certainly seemed more scenic than the English film. Both stories are about the lead lady protagonist falling for a hot guy on vacation, but the German film is a ‘thriller’, while the other is a dreamy romance.
Directed by Sherry Hormann, ‘Fall for Me’ stars Svenja Jung (‘Palace’/‘Empress’) as Lilli, an auditor visiting her little sister Valeria (Tijan Marei) in Mallorca, where she starts getting suspicious of Valeria’s boyfriend Manu (Victor Meutelet), who seems to good to be true. But before she can uncover anything damning, Lilli finds herself distracted by the handsome Tom (Theo Trebs), a club manager she meets during a night of dancing.
The central conflict is rooted in Valeria’s desire to sell their sprawling beachside property in order to fund a bed-and-breakfast venture with Manu. Lilli, however, resists letting go of the house for emotional reasons, all the while growing increasingly suspicious that her sister is throwing away her inheritance on a man she barely knows. Actors Svenja Jung and Tijan Marei have a cutesy sibling chemistry as sisters who share a love-hate relationship.
The film even opens with a cold prologue in which Lilli states, “A good scammer knows exactly what you desire.” So it’s obvious from the start that Manu is a fraud, the only real question is how many others are complicit. But by revealing its hand so early, ‘Fall for Me’ weakens its suspense.
The first half remains engaging, although the romantic chemistry between Svenja Jung’s Lilli and Theo Trebs’s Tom is only about decent, despite generous steamy-explicit scenes featuring them. The story takes a nosedive the moment the script strips Lilli of basic common sense. The most glaring example? Lilli is an auditor by profession, yet she blindly accepts a property valuation from a surveyor recommended by a man she just met, without even seeking a second opinion. Really?
For a while, I thought “Fall for Me” might at least work as a cautionary tale about organized scammers targeting women. But of course, the climax chickens out, absolves one of the crooks, and trots out the old cliché that “some men can be saved.”
Rating: 4 on 10. Watch ‘Fall for Me’ on Netflix.
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