Plot Details: This opinion reveals minor details about the movie's plot.

Why did this movie never capture my heart? It has unreasonably cute kids (one of whom even wants to be Jesus), Willem Defoe, and it deals with the horrors of the Holocaust. In spite of a strong plot with loads of dramatic action, Edges of the Lord somehow managed to stay right around the edges of the heart of someone who cries during each and every Extreme Makeover: Home Edition . . . including reruns.

A Word About Haley Joel Osment
Well, first of all, there's Haley Joel Osment playing Romek, a Jewish boy living in Nazi-occupied Poland who is taken in by a family of working-class Catholics. You may remember Osment from The Sixth Sense. He's the boy who sees dead people.

There's something about this young actor that I love. He's very giving to his co-stars (as a good actor should be) and he puts his heart into his scenes - yet I feel numb towards his characters. There's something automatonish about him that I can only conjecture is the result of poor coaching. I know he loves acting and I've seen interviews with him where he seems to have a better handle on the craft than I would expect from many multi-million dollar per movie actors today (Keanu Reeves comes to mind). However, it's like someone told him that this one look he gives - a sort of deer stuck in the headlights look - is the one he should stay locked into regardless of the scene he's playing.

I can see why someone would tell him that. It's a look that is intense, yet blank. It allows the audience to project whatever they can into his character. You know he's feeling something, but what could it be? Well, it's some kind of mixture of fear and knowing. I could make up any kind of story in my mind about why. That's a powerful ability and one that I'm sure helps a wide variety of scenes, but there are times when it just goes too far. Like when, in Edges of the Lord, Romek (remember he's a hideaway Jew), is found by the Nazis with a gun in his hand next to a teen who's been shot. Further off in the distance are a group of Jews who have jumped from the trains. Osment plays this look to its extreme in this scene - standing totally frozen with eyes as big as silver dollars. Rather than shoot him outright, the Nazi's assume he's been robbing the Jews and killed the teen in the process. Not only does he come out of this climactic moment unscathed, but the Nazis are impressed by his ruthlessness. They give him a Nazi hat, pat him on the back, etc. The problem is that Romek continues to be seized by fear until it's almost unbelievable that the Nazis wouldn't think something was amiss.

Then it just passes the threshhold into unbelievability and he's lost his audience - which is a real shame because the scene that follows is too important to not be engaged. Maybe he was set up for failure from the outset. All of the kids do a great job with their Polish accents (which, at their worst, sound unmistakably Russian), but the kid from The Sixth Sense is just so well known right now that they may have been better off letting the kids speak in their authentic voices. At the very beginning of the movie, when Osment begins narrating, something inside me just went, "Oh, o.k. So he's going to have a fake accent throughout this whole film. Sounds pretty good, so maybe it won't bug me. . . Naw, it bugs me."

Please let Osment do some theatre, or work in a film with someone who will serve as a mentor to him - someone of a higher caliber than Bruce Willis, for instance. He is a gifted actor who is willing to do the work he needs to do to really move people. I really don't want to see his talents squandered by poor direction and coaching.

Themes and Plot
Basically, the Catholic themes drive the plot of this movie. Willem Defoe plays a priest in this town that is being spiritually and physically ravaged by Nazis. He struggles with the power of God's impotence against these cruel and murderous heathens. He can do very little for the adults, so he tries to focus on the children in the village who have missed their First Holy Communion sacrament because of the unrest of the war and occupation. He teaches the children that Jesus was a Jew, that many of the apostles were working-class like them, and even cuts his own hand to show the sacrifice inherent in the meaning of the Eucharist. He does his best to keep the promise of salvation through the church alive for the children, who undergo a series of losses and violations related to loved ones, property, and their very innocence. All of this happens as Romek is being hidden away by the family who is alternately loving and resentful towards him for inadvertently playing a role in the cause of the occupation by being a Jew.

I struggle with this because there is no time in the movie where Jewish traditions are taught at all - it's all about colonizing his Jewishness with Catholicism. Now, I'm a Roman Catholic and I get the whole notion that Jesus was a Jew - so, in one sense, Jesus is a good sublimation for Romek. Still, I wish they would have tried to balance out all of the scenes where he is forced to act Catholic. Some private moment somewhere in the film with Jewishness being dealt with other than through the life of Jesus would have been nice. It's not anti-Semetic, and I wouldn't expect Romek to be very open about Jewish traditions, but the director missed out on a great opportunity to show why Jesus (as Jew) did some of the things He did and how some of the sacraments are actually commentary or derivations of Jewish traditions.

This happens too often in the Roman Catholic faith and very definitely in this film. Jewishness is never dealt with so no one makes connections between the Last Supper and what a seder is, what sacrifice meant in the Jewish temples, etc. We erase a very important part of Jesus when we do this, and I guess part of me was hoping that in Edges of the Lord - when Jesus and Jewishness intersect so obviously - they might have dealt with it in some way. By avoiding what Jewishness is entirely throughout the film, they do Romek's character a disservice at the very least.

Throughout all of this, the youngest boy yearns to be Jesus so he can bring back all of the people who have died. He begs to be crucified, baptizes his friends, and so on. His performance is so amazing. He is completely committed to his character.

Other Notes
You may be wondering why you don't recall this movie in the theatres. According to IMBD (don't go to their website unless you don't mind an important part of the plot being revealed), it was never released in the US because of commercial difficulties. It went straight to DVD, which has no features with the exception of "Sneak Peeks."

Main Cast
Haley Joel Osment - Romek
Willem Dafoe - Priest
Liam Hess - Tolo
Richard Banel - Vladek
Olaf Lubaszenko - Gniecio
Malgorzata Foremniak - Manka
Andrzej Grabowski - Kluba
Chiril Vahonin - Robal
Ola Frycz - Maria

Also Known As: Boze skrawki (Poland)
Rated R for some violence and sexual content.
Runtime: France:95 min (Cannes Film Festival)
Language: English

Edges of the Lord was written and directed by Yurek Bogayevicz. Yurek Bogayevicz won the Polish Film Festival for Best Screenplay for Edges of the Lord in 2001.

My Movie Reviews:
The Keys to the House
The Greatest Game Ever Played
The Dresser
The Return

©2005 Meagan Downey


Recommended: Yes

Viewing Format: DVD
Video Occasion: Better than Watching TV
Suitability For Children: Suitable for Children Age 13 and Older