Reviewed by Neil Davey
Stars Matthew Rhys, Keira Knightley, Sienna Miller,
Cillian Murphy, Anne Lambton, Simon Armstrong,
Anthony O'Donnell, Graham 'Suggs' McPherson
Written by Sharman Macdonald
Certification UK 15 | Australia M
Runtime 110 minutes
Directed by John Maybury
The Edge of Love, John Maybury's partial portrait of the life of Dylan Thomas, is a fine movie. Its subject matter — drunken poet reconnects with childhood sweetheart, moves into her place with his wife, drinks too much, fucks up assorted lives — is the sort of thing British cinema used to be made of. Emotional torment? Check. A literary angle? Check. Lots of well-known actors doing odd accents? Check, check, check and, indeed, check ...
However, while that makes it sound like standard, dull Sunday afternoon fare, it's better than that. It's much better than that, in fact. It's supremely well played, heartbreaking and passionate. It's better than Atonement. It's Knightley's best performance to date. I'd also say it's Sienna Miller's best performance to date (and it is) but that seems to be damning with faint praise. Yes, Sienna Miller is better here than as the lingerie-clad moll in Layer Cake and, er ... come on. Without IMDb, how many more Sienna Miller films can you name? And how many did you see? Precisely. The thing to remember then is that this is not Sienna Miller's best performance to date. This is one of the best performances by a British actress for the past few years.
Miller plays Caitlin, the flirtatious — and extremely understanding — wife of Dylan Thomas (Rhys). Arriving in wartime London where Dylan is employed, to his frustration, as a scriptwriter for government propaganda films, Caitlin discovers that Dylan has run into his former sweetheart, Vera (Knightley). There's only one likely outcome ... but Caitlin doesn't baulk. Instead, she and Vera become friends. With Dylan and Caitlin's encouragment, Vera marries soldier William Killick (Murphy) and, when William is posted overseas, Vera returns to Wales with her friends. However, by this time the inverted commas are starting to appear around that word. By the time William returns, troubled, from the war, things are reaching a head, culminating in an act of violence that forces Vera to finally make a decision between the loves of her life.
If memory serves, Lindsay Lohan was attached to play the role of Caitlin for a while. Quite frankly, she must be kicking herself for letting this one slide as The Edge of Love is a little cracker. It's that rare sort of award-worthy film, one of the ones that deserves recognition for being good and for being driven by the right reasons: in this instance that's the producer learning about her grandparents, William and Vera, their relationship with Dylan and Caitlin and deciding to tell the story! Now there's a family that must have had some interesting tea-time conversations ...
Even with the eccentricities of the accents (English playing Welsh, Irish playing English etc), there's an easy, natural feel to the four leads. Murphy, who gets to do the traumatised hero thing, manages to keep it believable rather than a collection of tics. Rhys, too, is excellent as the crumpled and magnetic poet, but the film truly belongs to the ladies. Knightley is excellent, perhaps the best she's been (and with Pride & Prejudice and Atonement on her CV that's a comparison that means something) but Miller is a revelation. I'd have been impressed if she'd held her own against Rhys. As it stands, she gets the least flashy role in the film and makes it the most memorable. Remarkable.