with a model (Elle MacPherson) and her photographer/lover (Alec Baldwin), headed to Alaska in search of a memorable photo shoot. Tagging along with them is the guy whose Challenger they're riding in, a billionaire guy who happens to be the model's husband. Anthony Hopkins plays that guy.
Charles Morse begins the film as a wealthy cuckold, a bit of a sad sack. He's distant, well-dressed, dignified. (Can Hopkins ever not be dignified? Even Hannibal Lector was dignified--creepily, but still.) Morse "knows everything," because he's curious (and, presumably, because he has the leisure time to indulge his curiosity--envy is one of our themes, here). His secretary has given him a slim volume on survival in the wild, and he's reading it on the DeHavilland Beaver trip to the lodge where they'll stay. The other, younger folks are chattering away; Morse is a loner. And it's his birthday: the book is a gift.
Next day, Morse and Baldwin and Baldwin's assistant (played by Harold Perrineau, Jr.--who had played the gender-bender Mercutio, the year before, in Baz Luhrmann's movie remake of Romeo and Juliet) set off still deeper into the wilds in search of photographical fame and fortune for Bob Green (Baldwin's character). It's a bad plan. The plane crashes (poor Beaver!), and there they are. And now they have to get back.
Simple story.
Now, about the soundtrack: I've been playing the soundtrack from The Edge, in my head, since I bought the film. It became symbolic of the Freezing North, long before I knew I'd actually relocate my base of operations there (to the Freezing North, that is). When I did move to Olympia, Washington, and later to Seattle, the soundtrack from The Edge went with me. Living in the area it depicts made the music seem more right for the territory, not less so. It's spooky and majestic. Jerry Goldsmith wrote it, and, in a serendipitous twist, Jerry Goldsmith also wrote the soundtrack of the original Mummy, another of our "Movies for Life"! (Hey, Gess!)
I made my dad watch The Edge with me, back when I was luxuriating in this watch-a-movie-a-hundred-times business. "I see something new in it, every time I watch it!" I gushed. After helping me unpack the moving van, Dad settled in, in Olympia, with an Organic Fish Tale Wild Salmon Pale Ale in his hand. He watched for exactly two minutes and twenty seconds. He watched the opening credits roll. He watched the Hopkins character disembark the Challenger in his greatcoat, followed by the model-wife, the little photographer, and the shutter-snapping entourage. He watched the camera linger for a moment on MacPherson, in her fur hat and her lime-green parka.
"Ah," pronounced Dad, in a voice that said he needn't watch further: "The faithless trophy wife."
That pretty much sums it up. It is going to be my job, in posts to come, to explain to you what it is I could find to watch so many times, in this film!
Tink is signing off!
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