EDWARD (2024)
An adaptation of the children’s book The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane by Kate DiCamillo, which follows a child’s toy rabbit as he becomes separated from the little girl he belongs to. This film deviates from the original story as it shifts Edward’s journey of personal discovery to be a figment of his imagination, created as an emotional escape from his enduring dissatisfaction with a motionless existence. He is fundamentally limited both physically and mentally by the manner of his being. He is aware there are things he cannot sense, experience, and achieve. His intelligence lacks information and his imagination is informed only by the world he has been exposed to. At most, he can uniquely imagine the inverse of his current condition. The film concludes with a conversation between the girl he belongs to and a little boy which works to emphasize that both inside and out, the main battle Edward faces is the search for purpose without activity or agency.
The visual style and quality of the film is intent on capturing Edward’s perspective. Each element is designed to reflect his consciousness and what it consists of—or doesn’t consist of. There is no movement in any of the shots, no background noise of nature or life, only static. Even in his fantasy of flight, the elements develop around him but never shift his position. Edward’s life is a series of still moments, even in the lives he dreams of.