Standing On The Edge

A woman has to take stock of her life and admit to herself that she has a problem with alcohol before her life completely falls apart around her, or worse.

 

Carolyn (Sanders) has a drinking problem. Unfortunately, she’s not ready to admit it to herself yet, even though her husband, Richard (Brenneman) has moved out and taken their son, Axton (Ilian) with him. When we first meet her, Carolyn is looking after Axton for the one hour a week she has been allowed due to her circumstances. Even now she is zoning out and paying little attention to her son, which is probably why he seems to be very immature in his manner and play. Looking like he’s somewhere around eleven, but being played as though he is more like six years old, Axton is a four-and-a-half-foot tall baby who likes to whoosh monster trucks through the air pretending that they’re aeroplanes. Carolyn does her best to re-engage when pressured to do so by her son, but otherwise her mind is always on the demon drink.

 

When Richard turns up to take Axton home with him again, Carolyn is left alone with her own thoughts and her own feelings about herself. Initially believing that she is being wronged and misrepresented at every turn, she takes a drink in defiance and in an attempt to calm her nerves. Naturally, one thing leads to another and soon enough Carolyn is drinking at all hours of the day, doing all she can to numb her pain, and trying her best to keep the voices at bay. Unfortunately, once the voices take hold properly, Carolyn finds herself on the roof of her building, ready to do something drastic to stop it all from becoming too much to bear.

 

All throughout Standing On The Edge, we are very aware that what we are watching is a very amateur production. Writer and director, Garrett Brenneman uses economy in all of areas of his film to give us this family’s story, seriously reducing the cinematic feel needed for it to be relayed on screen. The acting from all leads is poor, almost to the point of looking unrehearsed, and it seems difficult for Mike Brenneman as the father to get his words out sometimes. When this happens, it would be down to the director to stop, reset, and try again, but (Garrett) Brenneman doesn’t bother with that and just leaves the fumblings and mumblings in his scenes.

 

Sadly, Lisa Michelle Sanders doesn’t fare any better as the mother, vaguely grasping at the emotions she is supposed to be portraying, whilst going wildly over the top at turns, risking the whole production being turned into a farce. She isn’t helped by the grand overtures of DeWayne Adcock’s orchestral score, which blast out over her tears and grief as she gurns herself into submission, nor by the rest of the sound design which doesn’t always fit in with the characters or the images.

 

It is commendable that Brenneman has decided to take on such a difficult theme for his story, and it’s obvious he has some real investment in getting the message out about the ‘behind closed doors’ realities of alcoholism. Showing the need for Carolyn to come to terms with her own problems, to then accept the help that is being offered by those who care for her, is a noble and forceful reason for creating a film like Standing On The Edge. Unfortunately, the shoehorned religious element, complete with misspelled bible quotation, really feels forced at the end and only serves to alienate some viewers who will undoubtedly feel as though they’re being preached to. Alcoholism is a real-world problem, not one that has to be attributed to the devil.

 

In the end, Standing On The Edge falls short at every hurdle in terms of its production, and lands as a damp squib of a story when it could so easily have had a depth of emotion and understanding of character just from the scenario it portrays. Rather than being a professional project, Standing On The Edge is more of a family affair, looking like it was created for an amateur showing in the local church group, meaning that the issues it wants to tackle are not entirely represented in the way they should be.