The Edge of Love (2009)

It's actually quite hard to fully account for the failure of John Maybury's "The Edge of Love", and even harder to pin the blame for that failure. A film that revolves around the acting of Keira Knightley, Sienna Miller and Cillian Murphy would seem to have a lot going for it, and the (for me) unknown Matthew Rhys also does a great job of playing that Welsh master of wordplay Dylan Thomas.The four of them here act out a true story which culminates in a dramatic - and certainly filmworthy - event that actually happened (and can for example be read about in a Daily Telegraph article of June 9th 2008 entitled "My granddad tried to kill Dylan Thomas").And - apart from the superb (if at times coarse) "Under Milk Wood", Thomas gave us the just-unreservedly-superb "Do not go gentle into that good night" - possibly the best and most meaningful poem ever written in the history of the world. Plenty of other Dylan Thomas works demonstrate abundantly well the guy's enormous talent.I suppose "Do not go gentle..." itself gives a clue or two, for Thomas did indeed choose to "rage, rage". Obsessed with things tough and macho (when potentially he was perhaps not that much of either), he insisted that his life should primarily be devoted to womanising, smoking and drinking and - quite often also - to being profoundly annoying and childishly silly. He thus did much to contribute to his own death at the ridiculous age of 39.All of this is made fully clear in the film, and one cannot fault Matthew Rhys for the work he does here, which is in many ways excellent.But, somehow, we don't want to know...All the more we don't want to know given the wartime setting, in which Thomas more than once sounds off arrogantly about men in uniform not even knowing what they are fighting for (ironic really, since if ever there was a war in which ordinary people did indeed know what they were fighting for it was 1939-45).One of those men in uniform is the Cillian Murphy character of Capt. William Killick of the Special Operations Executive, a true and genuine hero who Murphy plays straight and well here. Killick entices Vera Phillips (the Keira character) away from her role as occasional hanger-on with Thomas and his wife Caitlin (the Sienna Miller character), and from that point of view he was just doing what came naturally in a straightforward "young officer pressed for time falls for pretty and sweet girl" kind of story.Unfortunately, necessarily, he soon after marrying went off to Greece (behind the lines), saw plenty of action, and came back to Wales to find out that the three others had been living in two cottages there for those several years of his absence, and spending his military pay, and generally doing a whole lot of not very much. Needless to say, that upset Killick more than a bit, and he did become a bit trigger happy at that moment ... and the case went to court.That is an amazing story but one that you wade a long way through "The Edge of Love" in order to reach, and in fact this part of the film is rather played down compared with interminable earlier parts that are often offputting and sometimes also tedious.And ultimately that's (I suspect) just because we don't want the light of too much truth to shine in on the legend here.Perhaps somehow the Director is at fault here - but mostly because he is perhaps overambitious in what he thinks an audience (or at least an ordinary audience member) is prepared to tolerate.

The amount of cigarettes smoked in this film reached ludicrous proportions. Despite wartime rationing there seemed to be continually one on the go with every character, apart from the babies. it was so silly after the first hour or so I began to laugh out loud. Was the film funded by Imperial Tobacco or Forest ? If it was the BBC must be held to account.Did concerts really take place in bomb shelters ? Did soldiers really take Sten Guns and grenades and live ammo home on leave ? Did British women really wear trilby hats ? This looked like 21st Century boho chic, not the 1940's. The scene were the paratroopers jumped out of the Dakota with the Stens in their hands was really silly. They would have lost them in the slipstream. Also I'm sure no one actually appeared to be wearing a parachute.Without the crypto lesbian stuff this film would have had no interest at all. Even with it there was next to none. It seemed added to add tabloid prurience to an otherwise deathly dull film. The acting was actually quite good. It just seemed that the script was total pants from start to finish. I actually felt sorry for the cast by the end who all deserved better than this.

This is probably the worst film I have ever had the misfortune to see. There is no discernible plot, the script might have been written by a twelve-year-old, and the acting is deplorable. Above all, it seems to have nothing to do with either Dylan or Caitlin Thomas. This film buys into all the clichés about the Thomas' life together, and gives those viewers unfamiliar with the facts a picture that bears as good as no resemblance to the truth. The pretentiousness of this film is nauseating; I can only assume that none of the actors or actresses had ever read anything of Dylan or Caitlin Thomas. had they bothered to do so, they might have spotted the misquoted lines of Thomas' poetry that are scattered throughout the 'dialogue' at the most inopportune moments. this picture is deplorable. Miss it.

Dylan Thomas was a poet from Wales. I had heard of him, but knew nothing of him, nor his work. That he died, at age 39 while on a USA tour, was a surprise. In general I have a very low opinion of poets who simply view their vocation in life as a poet. So to me Dylan Thomas was not a productive member of society. When I was 20 and in college 43 years ago I wrote this poem, and it sums up my feeling:"To write a poem is hard indeed, agreed? <> To think great thoughts, a might task, <> So why should I presume to ask, <> Simple folk my simple poem to read?"But all that aside, I enjoyed this movie. The three main actors created interesting roles. The movie is based on real people, but I gather that most of the situations and dialog are fictional.Keira Knightley is Vera Phillips, friends with Dylan Thomas from their youth. Even though he eventually marries someone else, he never seems to lose his fascination with Vera, who aspires to be a professional singer.The movie is set during the war in the 1940s and some scenes are of Vera singing to huddled Londoners seeking shelter in the tunnels below the city. To her credit Knightly does all her own singing. Matthew Rhys is Dylan Thomas and Sienna Miller is his wife Caitlin MacNamara.