You
can practically hear a Hollywood casting director describe Elliot Baker as a
Trump voter (turns out he is played by a Swede, but that makes him even more
white). Baker has been laid off from the timber mill, emasculated by his ex-wife,
and alienated from his weakling sons. He is definitely a gun owner too.
However, director Rob Connolly and his co-screenwriter Kyle Mann are clearly
torn whether they should demonize or empathize with Baker, so they constantly
split the difference in Edge of Winter (trailer here), which opens
tomorrow in New York.
While
Baker’s ex-wife and her nauseatingly responsible second husband are off on a
cruise, his sons, the teenaged Bradley and the ten-ish Caleb will stay with the
unemployed old man. Of course, Baker’s quick temper almost immediately shows
itself, despite his cringey trying too hard. The discovery of his hunting rifle
leads to an impromptu trip into the mountains to do some shooting, once the
father finishes his conniption fit.
Naturally
a perverse set of circumstances conspires to trap the ill-prepared Baker clan
in the woods. In retrospect, it was also probably a bad idea to let slip their
stepfather’s plans to relocate the family to London. It definitely rattles him,
but when two scruffy French-Canadian hunters barge into their cabin shelter, it
sets off Baker’s darkest paternal instincts.
Yet,
what that all means is still mostly up to your interpretation. Baker either
shares a kinship with Michael Douglas in Falling
Down or Jack Nicholson in The Shining.
Connolly can’t seem to decide. Joel Kinnaman’s halting performance is equally
ambivalent, but the sulky, stoop-shouldered Swede is a compelling picture of
wounded masculinity. Frankly, we really do not understand Kinnaman’s appeal but
his beaten-and-battered twitchiness is not out of place in this half-pregnant
film. In fact, Tom Holland and Percy Hynes White are so eye-rollingly entitled
and hopelessly white bread as Bradley and Caleb Baker, respectively, it sort of
manipulates us into sympathizing with the wildly problematic father. They too
earn our scorn for so callously pushing their father away, yet who can blame
them?
