Edge of Winter movie review & film summary (2016)
The two boys are neither overjoyed nor disappointed to be left with their dad. They know his complexities well enough, it would seem. The man has a temper, after all, and it suddenly erupts when one of the boys finds a rifle under a bed. But after Elliot cools off, he has an idea: The kids know nothing about guns, do they? Well, he’ll teach them. It’s a fatherly thing to do, and a subject young males should master. For the boys, this not only promises to be a bonding rite, but one with a hint of the forbidden: their step-dad would never offer it, and their mom would no doubt be horrified.
Out in the snowy Ontario back country, Bradley (Tom Holland), the older boy, is stunned to discover how strong the shotgun’s kick to his shoulder is. But he and his sibling, Caleb (Percy Hynes White), enjoy learning the basics of marksmanship. It’s an enjoyable outing, up until the boys’ tussling in the car as they depart sends it careening into a snow bank, where it gets firmly lodged.
With no civilization in sight, Elliot elects to lead the trio on a cross-country trek in search of help. But their compass-less hike only seems to lead them deeper and deeper into the wilderness, and the ordeal becomes life-threatening when Bradley falls through the ice of a frozen lake and flounders helplessly until his dad plunges in and saves him.
Fortunately, there’s an empty hunting cabin nearby and Elliot is able to build to a fire to take the chill off his and Bradley’s soaked bodies. But the three are still stranded in the middle of nowhere, and to make a bad situation even worse, the boys let slip a piece of news that they were meant to keep secret: their step-dad has gotten a new job in England and means to move the family there soon.
The thought that his boys will be taken from him in a way that seems both drastic and permanent stuns Elliot, and we can soon see where his thoughts take him: Rather than being rescued, maybe he and the boys could hole up out here in the wilderness and live off the land. Wouldn’t that be an adventure? Wouldn’t it be better than being separated across continents?
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