Before Spider-Man, Tom Holland Starred In A Thriller With A DC Extended Universe Actor
Tom Holland made his first on-screen feature film appearance in J.A. Bayona's 2012 disaster picture "The Impossible," playing Lucas, the 12-year-old son of Ewan McGregor and Naomi Watts' characters. Holland was in a few notable films thereafter, working with Ron Howard on the "Moby-Dick" riff "In the Heart of the Sea" and playing one of the voices on the other end of the phone in Steven Knight's celebrated one-man drama "Locke." It wasn't until 2016 that Holland broke into the Hollywood mainstream by portraying Spider-Man in "Captain America: Civil War," and he's been playing Spider-Man ever since (culminating with this year's box office smash "Spider-Man: Brand New Day," which has earned, at last count, over 9,000 sextillion dollars).
Interestingly Holland appeared in several other films besides "Civil War" in 2016. That year also saw the release of Bayona's mournful fantasy "A Monster Calls" (where Holland served as the stand-in for the monster) and James Gray's exploration biopic "The Lost City of Z," in which Holland appeared opposite his eventual "The Odyssey" co-star Robert Pattinson.
In addition, Holland starred in the little-seen 2016 Canadian thriller "Edge of Winter" alongside Joel Kinnaman, whom many know as Rick Flag from the DC Extended Universe (or, assuming they haven't forgotten it, RoboCop in the 2014 "RoboCop" remake). Kinnaman stars in the movie as Elliot Baker, a devoted father eager to teach his sons about wilderness survival and gun safety, while Holland plays Bradley, one of Elliot's sons. Unfortunately, this would-be pleasant bonding experience ends up taking some pretty dark turns.
Edge of Winter stars Joel Kinnaman as Tom Holland's father
The bulk of "Edge of Winter" takes place in the snowy wilderness of Canada and focuses on Elliot, Bradley, and Elliot's other son Caleb, played by Percy Hynes White. From Elliot's perspective, an "outward bound" experience would be the perfect thing to bond with his boys after getting divorced from their mother being fired from his job for punching his boss in the face. The kids, however, aren't the gung-ho frontiersmen that Elliot is, and they aren't used to firing guns. (Caleb, in particular, hates shooting cute little bunnies.) Then their car goes off the road and gets stuck and Bradley nearly dies after falling through some not-so-frozen ice. Things aren't going well.
Everything ultimately flies to Hell when Elliot encounters some other hunters out in the wilderness, descends into paranoia and depression, and tries to kill them. On paper, it's apparent that "Edge of Winter" is meant to be an acting showcase for Joel Kinnaman as his character deteriorates mentally over the course of the film. Hence, it falls to Tom Holland's Bradley to confront his father about his terrible behavior. Unsurprisingly, the movie ends on a very bleak note.
What did critics think of Edge of Winter?
"Edge of Winter" got a very limited release in Canada and the United States in August 2016, and no one really remembers it. In his review for IndieWire, David Ehrlich gave the movie a C, describing it as, quite evocatively, an "unconditional love as a slow-motion car crash," but he also noted that "the film is woefully incapable of expressing itself when it matters most." He added that the movie is tragic yet airless, which makes for a dour watching experience. More than anything, though, he was impressed with Joel Kinnaman's performance. However, he only focused on Tom Holland long enough to mention that he would play Spider-Man in a future film.
Ed Gonzalez, writing for Slant, had similar observations. As he observed:
"Kinnaman is an unmistakably great actor, and in part because of his resourcefulness. In scenes where he's tasked with giving expression not to Elliot's drive toward violence, but to the emotional distance between Elliot and his children, [the film's] initially conspicuous disregard for the details of what drove a wedge between Elliot and his ex-wife comes to feel less like a cop-out."
And that's kind of all there is to say. The stars of "Edge of Winter" likely took the gig for an acting challenge of working on a low-budget indie (that and, naturally, a paycheck). Rob Connolly doesn't appear to have directed a movie since, although two of his stars, as mentioned, went on to become part of Hollywood's superhero machine. If one is curious, "Edge of Winter" is available to stream for free (with ads) on the Roku Channel and Tubi.