The Big Picture
Jamie Dornan delivers a remarkable performance in
The Fall
as Paul Spector, a disturbing fictional murderer.
The Fall
subverts genre norms by pitting Dornan’s misogynistic criminal against Gillian Anderson’s authoritative, intelligent investigator.
Dornan’s portrayal of Spector is rooted in meticulous detail, showcasing his ability to convincingly portray a terrifying killer who hides behind a facade of normalcy.
In 2014, Jamie Dornan won the Irish Film and Television Academy’s Best Actor TV award. During his acceptance speech, he called the series for which he won “the best professional thing that’s ever happened to me” and thanked the creator for taking a risk on a newcomer. At the time of his speech, Dornan had few credits to his name. Finally, he’s receiving his time in the spotlight. His series The Tourist, distributed through Netflix, is a smash hit about to launch its second season. Before then, Dornan’s performance in the critically acclaimed Belfast was nominated for a Golden Globe. Much like his Fifty Shades of Grey co-star Dakota Johnson or the Twilight cast, this actor brings far more to the table than the talent-suppressing Fifty Shades trilogy allowed.
Ironically enough, although we can joke that Christian Grey belongs in prison for his maximalist creeper vibes, years before Fifty Shades’s morally dubious Red Room hit the mainstream, Dornanplayed one of the most disturbing fictional murderers in recent memory. The Fall, an unsung tour de force of BBC crime dramas, lets him deliver a performance both thoroughly nuanced and irrepressibly unfettered by convention. Dornan’s Paul Spector, a serial killer dubbed the Belfast Strangler, remains a remarkable career highlight. Ireland agreed, giving him that 2014 Best Actor award. Plus, The Fall dares to pair Dornan’s viciously misogynistic criminal against a bastion of fictional feminism: Gillian Anderson. The result is genre-subverting magic, albeit a concoction that’s heinously unforgettable for its unflinching realism.
The Fall
A seemingly cold but very passionate policewoman goes head to head with a seemingly passionate father who is in fact a cold serial killer in this procedural out of Belfast. The only thing they share is their common complexity.
Who Does Jamie Dornan Play in ‘The Fall’?
Set in Belfast, Ireland, The Fall follows two protagonists in parallel narratives that intersect as slowly and inextricably as butter melting on low heat. Stella Gibson (Anderson), a Metropolitan Police Superintendent who usually conducts case reviews behind a desk, takes charge of a local task force after the death of Belfast resident Alice Monroe remains unsolved for 28 days. As an experienced professional with a formidable mind, Stella’s the only one to realize that Alice and recent murder victim Sarah Kay (Laura Donnelly) were killed by the same man. An active serial killer haunts the streets, already choosing his next victim like one peruses a restaurant menu. This killer, Dornan’s Paul Spector, cloaks his crimes behind a veil of domestic normalcy. From the outside, he’s a professional grief counselor and an attentive husband and father. The closer Stella grows to finding Spector, the closer Spector gets to taking another woman’s life.
The Fall sets itself apart from its BBC peers in two main ways, one of them being its psychological emphasis. Written entirely by Allan Cubitt, the series strips away the common mystery question of “Who is the killer?” and replaces it with “Why does he kill?” There’s no logistical riddle to solve: Spector reveals his face to the camera within the pilot’s first minutes. Said camera then follows him with as much lingering, intimate, yet detached detail as it does Stella, his narrative counterpart. Such a move amps the investigation’s urgency. All the criminal profiling and bureaucratic tape Stella wades through to find Spector is infuriating because viewers know how closely Spector’s circling his chosen prey.
“It’s interesting learning the motives of the person doing the killing,” Dornan told Digital Spy, “so that was a big draw for me. […] You don’t want to do too much and become a caricature of the five famous serial killers in the world. Paul Spector has his own story and his own motives, his own reason, his own imbalance – so you’ve got to draw on that and try to make it something that’s unique to him.”
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That said, The Fall doesn’t waste time overcomplicating or glorifying the reason Spector stalks, tortures, and murders women. In the Season 1 finale, Stella answers that question unequivocally: “It’s just misogyny. Age-old violence against women.” This is The Fall’s thesis. In a media landscape proliferated with psychologically-based crime dramas trying to sympathize their villains, Spector exists to profoundly disturb. His isn’t an overly complex portrait. The Fall seeks to understand how a man can attend to his wife’s needs and pack his daughter’s pink lunchbox before strangling women to death, knowing full well the reasons are baked into society’s broken framework. Spector’s the definition of the abyss stares back, but done with a meticulous sense of detail, a keen eye for atmosphere, and instantaneous subversion of genre norms.
Jamie Dornan’s Performance in ‘The Fall’ Is Rooted in the Details
Image via BBC
That’s the narrative goal. In execution, Spector would be nothing without Dornan. The role requires a killer who’s terrifying because he’s aggressively normalized. Most of Dornan’s screentime involves the actor hinting at the depravities lurking beneath Spector’s fake persona. To outsiders, Spector seems innocuous and handsome. He must, to avoid suspicion. What separates Dornan’s performance from, say, the overt toe-curling charm of Hannibal Lecter (Mads Mikkelsen) is the way profound wrongness oozes from Spector’s smallest interactions. The devoted family man is convincing at a glance, but tenderness never reaches his eyes or lasts beyond what’s required. There are too many cracks in his facade if you know where to look, and there would still be something suspect if you didn’t. Dornan told The Independent about his approach, “I think it would be wrong to play him entirely as a monster. One of the things that makes Spector compelling is that there are relatable aspects to him…there are no undercurrents of menace in those moments because it’s a father talking to his daughter.”
When Spector’s free to unleash the beast,Dornan’s performance remains just as precise, sinister, and oddly hypnotic. The only time emotion sparks in Dornan’s eyes is when Spector’s on the hunt. A self-satisfied smirk suggests glee. He doesn’t hover in the shadows like Michael Myers; he lounges, his body language somewhere between a loping predator and a lion flaunting its claws. Any actor can make smelling a woman’s lingerie horrifically invasive; this is subtler work. Worse still, Spector moves through his routine with practiced ease — kiss the wife, take the kids to school, murder — and that’s far more malevolent than an elaborately staged kill scene. Even when Spector commits violence, he looks composed. But that portrait of arrogance is what Spector wants to be. What he is, is warped masculine rage. Every facial twitch conveys how Spector’s barely keeping that petulant anger in check. Sometimes he’s an animal trapped in a cage; other times, he’s a starved predator.
Despite Dornan’s lower profile at the time, Allan Cubitt didn’t consider anyone else for the part. “There were other names floating about,” Cubitt shared with The Independent, “but I was absolutely convinced that we had our Spector. I got very vociferous about it and said, ‘if it’s not Jamie than we don’t have anyone.’ And I sent the tape off to Gillian and said, ‘I think we’ve found our Spector’ and she e-mailed me back to say ‘Hoorah…we absolutely have.” In the same piece, Dornan joked, “I would like to know the answer to that one, too,” about why Cubitt was so convinced. To Digital Spy, he admitted, “I thought I was in over my head when they cast me, and then found some kind of ease within it – but it was not an easy transition because it’s not a nice place to be in.”
Jamie Dornan Holds His Own Against Gillian Anderson in ‘The Fall’
Paul Spector’s malignancy wouldn’t hit the same if it weren’t for The Fall’s internationalist approach. It attended the Luther school of “let’s eff up our audience” but switches out that series’ nightmarish sequences for a different kind of horror. The Fall ensures its victims are seen as people. The pilot spends time with Sarah Kay as a real, living woman with a routine, opinions, desires, a demanding job, an enjoyable social life, and a beloved cat. She isn’t stalked by a voyeuristic camera emulating the murderer’s point-of-view; she exists in the world. The Fall shows the details of the life Spector will steal by the pilot’s end without stumbling into graphic exploitation. Even when attending officer Danielle Ferrington (Niamh McGrady) discovers Sarah’s body, Ferringon, who met Sarah days earlier, treats the other woman with dignity.
Then there’s the stroke of genius: pitting Spector against the ferocious, flinty Stella Gibson. Gillian Anderson’s repertoire doesn’t allow for poor performance, and she’s rarely been in finer form. Between the clack of her high heels, the perfect blonde hair, and conducting herself at a remove, Stella hits the marks of a stereotypical ice queen. The script, and Anderson, show the human woman within. Stella’s presence fills the world in a manner normally reserved for male protagonists. She’s clear, authoritative, and sexually autonomous. She doesn’t go out of her way to be kind, but a professional woman operating within a largely male workforce doesn’t equate to “rude.” With a watchful expression as still as a frozen lake, Stella defines fearlessness. She’s so accustomed to navigating knee-jerk sexism that her fact-dropping rejoinders about misogyny are that: facts, delivered indisputably. Her mere existence angers men. Sometimes, however, Stella’s anger bleeds through. She wants justice for all women, and that mission flashes sharp teeth.
Sure, there are intellectual similarities between Stella and Spector. They aren’t quite Clarice Starling and that other Dr. Lecter, and they’re certainly not the corruptive love-hate that defines the Hannibal series. Stella and Spector advance the former and renounce the latter. The screen may crackle between Anderson and Dornan, but their chemistry is complex in its simplicity. He’s a sadist. She will punish him. There’s no reduction of moralistic tension into lust, which would be insulting. Through this rigorous acting, Dornan more than holds his own against an accomplished actress. He answers Anderson move for move (whereas I would crawl under the table if Gillian Anderson stared at me with such eviscerating disdain).
‘The Fall’ Wouldn’t Work Without Jamie Dornan
Image via BBC
In Season 1, Stella asks how her colleague Reed Smith (Archie Panjabi) keeps her daughters safe. Reed tells them, “Don’t talk to strange men.” Stella aims an amused, disbelieving look over her shoulder and echoes, “Strange men?” Shrugging, Reed amends her answer to, “Any men.” Thematically, The Fall’s Paul Spector reinforces what anyone who isn’t a white, heterosexual, cisgender man already knows: no man can be trusted. What’s a fascinating shock to some — “he seemed so nice!” — is no surprise to us. Spector is the nightmare I see in my head when I walk down any street, and Jamie Dornan portrays that inescapable truth with a chilling intensity underpinning his every glance.
The Fall is available to stream on BritBox.
Watch The Fall