The Edge of Love

Keira Knightley and John Maybury reteamed after The Jacket with The Edge of Love, and despite Maybury's stylized direction, this romantic drama about Dylan Thomas is a dud.

Set during World War II, the Welsh poet is in London, writing scripts for propaganda films, when he runs into Knightley, who was a childhood sweetheart. That he's married to the free-spirited Sienna Miller doesn't seem to cool his ardor, and the three become a small circle of friends. In fact, the film is really concerned with the bond between the two women.

Though Thomas (Michael Rhys) is a swaggering philanderer, he keeps his hands off Knightley, who is wooed by a British officer, Cillian Murphy, whom she marries. While he's off fighting in Greece, Rhys, Miller and Knightley move to the Welsh coast, and Knightley and Rhys finally submit to temptation. This damages the relationship between the two women, and when Murphy returns he senses something amiss as well.

I think the greatest sin of this film is it makes Dylan Thomas seem uninteresting. I think part of that is the colorless performance by Rhys, but he's not helped by the script, which has him reading a lot of Thomas' poetry but gives us no sense of what drives him to write. Instead Maybury lavishes attention on the two lead women, and I can't remember a film that in which two faces are shown more gorgeously. Knightley is in the opening shot, over-saturated in color, as she sings "Blue Tahitian Moon" (and shows off a fine singing voice). Her cheekbones are a major part of the story. Then there's Miller, who is first seen on a train, and Maybury pulls tight on her crimson-painted lips as she blows smoke. Ooh la la! Lindsay Lohan was originally to play this part, so we can be thankful for small favors.

So while these two beauties are exquisite to look at, the story is a soggy mess. The script was written by Sharman Macdonald, who happens to be Knightley's mother, so there's something of a whiff of a vanity production here. I think there's a good film to be made about Dylan Thomas and his romantic entanglements, but this isn't it.