Jane Larkin explores the elite female athlete experience in The Edge

Nick L'Barrow - May 2, 2025

Three young women - an Aussie sprinter, a First Nations powerlifter, and a Japanese Paralympic swimmer - navigate life, love, education, and controversy in the competitive world of elite sport.

In this dramatic feature film, three young women navigate life, love, education, and controversy while deeply embedded in the world of elite sport. The Edge is an honest and gritty portrayal of female athletes in the pool, the gym, and on the track, exploring not only their sports, but morality, friendship, heritage, and sexuality.

Leading up to The Edge‘s premiere at the Gold Coast Film Festival, Nick L’Barrow spoke with writer/director/star Jane Larkin about exploring her own experiences as an elite female athlete for this story, and the incredible true stories about her co-stars resilience in adversity that formed life-long bonds between the stars.

Nick: I’d love to ask about how you formed the personalities of these three main characters, especially since you have yourself and these two incredible Olympians in Mei Ichinose, who is a Paralympian, and Lily Riley, who is a cancer survivor. How much of the real-life personalities of yourself, Mei, and Lily bleed into the characters of The Edge?

Jane Larkin: Yeah, it’s a great question. I think there’s definitely aspects of myself in all three of the leads. I think we sort of naturally do that as writers – we write what we know. I mean, I’m a bit ridiculous in real-life, so that’s definitely Sylvia! However, I wish I had Sylvia’s confidence all the time though! But I can definitely be competitive and serious, and that’s Annie.

I’ve lived overseas multiple times, and you know, understanding the cultural differences that come in different training squads is something that I really understood about Yui, even though the character was definitely based on Mei. I accidentally plagiarised Mei’s life a little bit, and when I realised what I had done, I was able to sit her down and ask if she was alright with this character I had written that was basically her. Mei is very measured, so she took some time to think about it, but she ended up really loving it and that was important for me. She’s a huge advocate in the disability space, and it was important to her to see the character portrayed correctly.

Sylvia was definitely written through a lot of my own experiences and other really strong women I’ve come across. And it was just ridiculous that I was able to send out a casting call, and we found Lily. It was like I wrote this character into existence! She’s just so much like the character. She’s really unapologetically her. She’s super strong and amazing.

Nick: Did you find that there was a natural chemistry between the three of you based on your experiences being elite athletes, and the unique understanding you would all have of that lifestyle?

Jane Larkin: I definitely think that female athletes can form a friendship on the basis of sports. Some of my best friends in life have been fellow athletes. I’ve been lucky enough to be friends with Mei, and we had an instant chemistry when we met at the University of the Sunshine Coast, in the recovery centre. We were there getting ice baths and freezing our butts off, and I thought she was such a bad-ass. She was so cool, and she had this prosthetic arm that enabled her to do push-ups, and it was incredible just to witness her strength.

I’m also very chatty and quite ridiculous, and I think Mei found me quite funny. But we were both competitive, even though we were in different sports and from different cultures, but I think my understanding of what it’s like living overseas helped us connect. I also think if it wasn’t for the movie, Lily and I would have met, and it would’ve felt so organic. There’s definitely the fact though that we all understand each other.

Nick: How did you go about interweaving three different storylines around three such unique personalities and events, while balancing how much of each person’s story is told and at what point?

Jane Larkin: Yeah, it was quite hard to do! I think there were times where I was counting the number of scenes to make sure each character had kind of an equal story. But to me, I envisioned it originally as a TV series, and it was going to be more of an ensemble cast. But eventually, I narrowed it down to a feature film with three leads. And because I had written the characters over many years, I knew them so well. So, that aspect of creating really organic, multi-faceted female athlete characters was natural.

Nick: There’s a moment in the film where Annie is kind of getting berated by her parents for not pursuing a career that brings in a constant stream of income. And I feel like being an up and coming athlete is very much similar to being an up and coming filmmaker. Do you see the parallel between the two?

Jane Larkin: Oh, Nick! This is going to become a therapy session [laughs]! The choices I’ve made in my life have not always been financially solid ones! I wanted to be a female athlete, I wanted to be an indie filmmaker, I studied philosophy. I think my parents just threw their hands up a long time ago and said, “That’s Jane!”

My parents actually play “my parents” in the film too! They’re incredible performers. My dad has performed at the Sydney Opera House, and he actually choreographed the dance that Joe, who plays Caleb, does! I think my parents and my coach were always very realistic about being in the female space of track and field. They would always make sure that I had a backup and a way to make money, pay the bills.

Nick: You’ve mentioned the female athlete experience, and that is very much what the film is trying to convey, but in a short amount of time. How did you decide what aspects of the experience that you wanted to explore in this film?

Jane Larkin: If it was up to me, this would’ve been a 10-hour film! I feel like I was bale to touch on things briefly, because you can’t explore everything. But, the female athlete experience is so different, and I wanted there to be elements of it that just aren’t glamourous. I think sometimes when they try to market female sports films that are about gymnastics, or dancing, or cheerleading, it’s about marketability because they are sexy women. And it’s not that I think we’re not sexy – I think all three of us have it going on. But it was important to me to show early on that there’s vomiting, grunting, groaning, pain, faces of power. Even just mentioning periods! Like we still bleed every month from our genitals and have to be elite athletes!

When you see that in male boxing films, it’s visceral. They never pull away. But with women, I don’t think we see that enough, even though it’s exactly the same. So, we definitely lent into that. The female athletic experience is a unique one, but we unfortunately couldn’t fit it all in an hour and forty-five minutes. I had to put my producer hat on!

Nick: I love the way you film the athletic scenes because you’re not just showcasing the sport on a surface level, but you really put the audience in the tough mindset it takes to be an elite athlete. How did the visual style of those scenes evolve from script to shooting?

Jane Larkin: Stephen King put it really well. He said, “People come to me and tell me they want to be writers. So, I ask them what they’re reading, and they tell me they don’t read much.” And I’m a big believer that if you’re going to be a filmmaker, you need to love film. You need to be devouring films. I studied film at university, but even with this, I watched Chariots of Fire, and I asked, “What did they do to get this to feel emotional? How did the music, the lighting, the cinematography bring all of these feelings together?” And that’s how I tried to execute that in this film, by finding the formula and bringing it to life in that physicality.

Thank you to Jane for her time, and to the Gold Coast Film Festival and PJ Marketing and Media for organising the interview. The Edge is playing at the Gold Coast Film Festival on May 2 and May 6, 2025.

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