Over the Edge

There is nothing for the children in a newly built planned community. The parents are at work, the houses are identical, and the only place to gather is the municipal youth centre. The police round them up constantly, the centre is closed, and with investors coming to town the young are asked to stay out of sight. Eventually a boy is shot. The subject is not crime but adults treating young people as a property-value problem. No family in the film is neglectful; all of them work, all of them are tired and none of them is ever in the same room as their children. The narration shows this without delivering a lesson. The form is realist and unshowy. Empty lots, concrete, prefabricated houses and not one unbroken view. The music is drawn from rock of the period and placed inside the scenes. The source is real reporting. A newspaper investigation into juvenile crime in a planned Californian community in the early seventies was the starting point. When the film was finished the studio feared screenings would trigger violence and gave it a very limited release; it became a cult item years later through television and video. Matt Dillon made his film debut in it. Jonathan Kaplan directs. Who it is for: viewers who like seventies American youth films and social realism. Who it is not for: anyone looking for hope; the film proposes no solution.