Edie

There are a few occasions during Edie that you think and hope 'please don’t go there'. But thankfully, from this writer’s perspective anyway, director and writer Simon Hunter (Mutant Chronicles) holds back from the lazy option and lets the story run its course.

In truth there isn’t really that much true originality in the story of 83-year-old Edie (Sheila Hancock) whose husband was incapacitated by a stroke for the last 30 years of his life, passes away. She then decides to seize the day and go on a mountain climbing expedition to Scotland’s Mount Suilven. An ambition of her father’s and something she could never accomplish once her husband was struck down.

Her daughter Nancy (Wendy Morgan) has other ideas but Edie has made up her mind and off she sets woefully ill equipped for the challenge. Getting to the town she finds she needs help which comes from Jonny (Kevin Guthrie) who as owner of the local camping shop kits her out with new gear, possibly creating a new record for single days takings.

Jonny has his own frustrations with his ambitious girlfriend Fiona (Amy Manson) and his own boredom in the small town. As such a friendship forms between Edie and Jonny though Hunter doesn’t take this too far and it doesn’t develop much more than fishing and drinking. However, he’s there in her hour of need when Edie is caught up the mountain in a storm.

It’s a good-looking film with wonderful shots of the landscapes and they have certainly got the best out of the drone. But character wise it feels half-done. Sheila Hancock isn’t going to let anyone down but Edie is underdeveloped, there are snatches that suggest that there is something deeper only to remain untapped. As are Jonny and Fiona’s characters who are clearly bored with small-town life and yearn to get out only with differing views about how to.

Overall Edie trundles along smoothly worn familiar path that eventually leads to a comfy if slight, and slightly sentimental watch.