Falling Angels is a 2003 independent film by Scott Smith, based on the novel of the same name by Barbara Gowdy and adapted for the screen by poet and author Esta Spalding. It is the second feature film by Scott Smith, writer, producer and director of Rollercoaster (1999). Set in the late 1960s, the film is a dark comedy focusing on the coming of age of three sisters and their struggle for independence in a dysfunctional family. It is also a story about the destructive effects of secrecy between parents and children.

Plot

The first few days of 1970, in an Ontario suburb, and the Field family's fragile domestic peace has come to an end with the death of mother Mary. The story is told in loops and flashbacks over 10 years, opening and closing with the water flowing over Niagara Falls, while the bulk of the film depicts the fall and winter of 1969 leading to Mary's funeral. In the background looms the tragedy of the suspicious death years ago of the first-born child, three-month-old Jimmy; a pervasive and never spoken of subject, Jimmy's existence is only revealed through a single newspaper clipping the (then adolescent) girls find in Mary's purse.