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.

The household is ruled by father Jim Field, modeled on his experiences in the military, as is illustrated by a flashback sequence to the two weeks he forced his family to spend trapped in his self-built backyard bomb shelter, for "practice".

She is also the only one intent on keeping the memory of her brother and on uncovering the secret around his death (the news article suggests that Mary slipped and dropped Jimmy over the falls, though the police suspected it wasn't an accident).

She engages in an affair with an older, married shoe salesman which ends up an awkward threesome scene with the man's twin brother, and Sandy learning that she is pregnant.

Things climax during one long New Year's Eve night, as a dramatic event and the final admission of the secret definitively put an end to the Fields' "pretend normal" family life.

Lynne Stopkewich was signed as writer/director in 1997 and produced a first draft but she desisted in 2000 to work on other films after the financial issues had delayed the project, recommending Scott Smith as director.

[5] Middleton took inspiration from Barbara Gowdy's family photos to re-create the atmosphere of the late 1960s while "combining realism with a slightly bent reality to emphasize certain psychological aspects of the story.

The film received two Genie Awards at the 24th Genie Awards in 2004: Best Art Direction/Production Design (Rob Gray and Christina Kuhnigk) and Best Original Song (Ken Whiteley for the song "Tell Me"), and was nominated four times: Best Cinematography (Gregory Middleton), Best Overall Sound (Warren St. Onge, Steph Carrier and Lou Solakofski), Best Sound Editing (David McCallum, Steven Hammond, Ronayne Higginson, David Rose and Jane Tattersall) and Best Adapted Screenplay (Esta Spalding).