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EDGE OF LOVE Send This Review to a Friend
There is seriousness about the romantic involvements depicted in “The Edge of Love” that commands attention, especially since it involves the renowned poet Dylan Thomas, but there also is tiresomeness about the characters as delineated in the screenplay by Sharman Macdonald, who based her work on an idea by Rebekah Gilbertson, as well as the books “A Farm, Two Mansions and a Bungalow” by David N. Thomas and “Personal Sketch of Vava and Personal Sketch of Papa” by Esther Killick. All this source material has yielded only a rather tedious tale of four-way passions.
Not that there is anything wrong with the cast. Keira Knightly plays Vera Phillips, a singer and longtime friend of Thomas (Matthew Rhys), who is sexually attracted to her, as she is to him. But the poet is married to Caitlin (Sienna Miller) and she and Vera maintain a close friendship, to be put under a strain as a result of the sparks of betrayal and perhaps something sexual between them. Vera has a man of her own played by Cillian Murphy, and he’s off to war—the setting is the era of World War II, the London blitz etc.
The film is directed by John Maybury, the sort of filmmaker who will cross-cut between an amputation at the military front with a woman in a painful baby delivery. Subtlety is not his strength.
As for watching the film, there is more boredom than pain as we experience the oh-so-somber manner in which the main characters maneuver through their angst. A Capitol Films and BBC Films release.
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