The experiences of starving poets in garrets are the stuff from which epic films are made. Sadly The Edge of Love, which takes as its inspiration aspects of the life of Dylan Thomas, falls far from the mark.
Much has been made of the central love triangle of Dylan, wife Caitlin (Sienna Miller) and Dylan's first love Vera Phillips (Keira Knightley), but what emerges is a trio of extremely unlikable people who exist on the charity and goodwill of others th
roughout their rootless lives. At its most basic, The Edge of Love (written by Sharman Macdonald, Knightley's mother) is a hatchet job on a Welsh hero.
History tells us that Dylan was a taker, a manipulator and a burden to friends and acquaintances, but this warts-and-all portrait seems to delight in revealing his failings, of which there were many. This is not a biopic of a genius at work. Instead it focuses on his destructive ways and his seemingly unstoppable thirst for drink and women, particularly if they are involved with other men. "I sleep with other women because I'm a poet, and a poet feeds off life," he announces at one point.
Set in austere First World War England, Macdonald's script centres on the Dylan/Caitlin/Vera dynamic, but gives the best role to Cillian Murphy as William Killick, the army officer who becomes the unwitting pawn in an ongoing bohemian melodrama of sexual and intellectual politics.
The film eventually cranks up to something resembling a dramatic crescendo: a stand-off between poet and soldier that is, in truth, a monumental let-down.
The picture does as least allow both Miller and Knightley to explore more mature characters than they have previously been used to, though the underwritten nature of the script prevents any real detail from taking root, while the magnetic nature of Dylan's personality remains a mystery.
Sadly Matthew Rhys fails to rise to the occasion. His voice lacks Dylan's lilt and majesty and he opts for a series of intense stares to communicate his various personalities: wastrel, libertine, philanderer, drunk.
A more interesting scenario would have been to focus on Dylan's final months when penury forced him to criss-cross the Atlantic for a series of lecture tours. That period, which resulted in his death aged only 39, offers far more drama than Rhys, Miller, Knightley and Murphy are able to inject into The Edge
of Love. At story's end we no longer care what happens to Dylan and his adoring wife and lover. They are so self-absorbed they have little to offer the rest of us.
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