The Ledge

The film opens from the edge from a ten-story building ledge, as a cop who has just been told of his wife's infidelity attempts to save a man who has decided to jump off the building--that's a good start! The rest follows and fascinates as there are two parallel tales are simultaneously related.

One of the marks of this film's fascination is that it can be read in many different ways--essentially a thriller, it is also a story that questions the nature of human love, of our place in the universe, as well as the human relationship to whatever God might be worshiped. It features some outstanding ensemble acting by a quartet of four, each of whom defines a character with both strengths and flaws...rather perversely, one waits out the film to see a possible suicide, and as Hitchcock so often implicates members of the audience as voyeurs, one feels similarly (if willingly) manipulated here.