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The Edge of Love (2008) More at IMDbPro »

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36 out of 43 people found the following comment useful :-
Not a bad film. Just one that could have been better, 1 July 2008

Author: seawalker from Birmingham, England

With the shadow of La Knightely looming large, I really wanted "The Edge Of Love" to be another "Atonement" - a big, beautiful looking, poetic wartime romance - but it wasn't. Do not get me wrong, there are many good things in "The Edge Of Love". It just did not touch my heart the way that "Atonement" did.

The acting is uniformly fine. Tabloid darlings Keira Knightley, and Sienna Miller especially, proved that their performances in "Atonement" and "Factory Girl" respectively were no flash in the pan. They were both excellent. Cillian Murphy is also good as Keira Knightley's war traumatised husband and Matthew Rhys got to the heart of the indifferent, drunken, selfish chancer that was Dylan Thomas.

"The Edge Of Love" looks fantastic. Contrast and compare the cinematography of the 'London during the blitz' setting of the first half with the bleakness of the Welsh coastal town of the second half. The first half of the film presents almost a fantasy world: Dreamy and just out of focus. Smoky pubs, soft lighting and shadows. The second half of the film presents a hard reality: Harsh pebble beaches and wide open spaces. Rain, grass, pain and small town mediocrity. In the former romance flourishes amid the cigarette smoke and the alcohol; in the latter romance fractures, and there will be a reckoning for bad behaviour.

(I will say at this juncture that most critics have written that the film loses it's heart when it moves out of London. I disagree. I think the film becomes real and true once it moves to Wales. The second half is my favourite half of the film.)

But sadly, and whisper this very quietly, "The Edge Of Love" is just a little bit too dull. Mood movies, and "The Edge Of Love" is definitely a mood movie, have to walk a very fine line between immersion in atmosphere and the demands of plot to keep the punters interested. Too often "The Edge Of Love" falls into the former. It needed more story.

Not a bad film, just one that could have been better.

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33 out of 54 people found the following comment useful :-
Give it a go.., 8 July 2008

Author: jennymurphy1990 from United Kingdom

So keira knightly is in it...So automatically we compare this film to attonement. Aside rom the fact that this film is also wartime and her appearance is uncanning, these films are totally different.

The Actors work well, i think one good thing is there is no memorable person, they are a team.

If you want a film where things happen, then id advise another as the story of this film is about human interaction and their physche's damaged by their experiences and how their lives are intertwined.

This film have genuine interaction, perfect pause moments that make you hold your breath. No its not exciting, but it is gripping if you can empathise with these characters. At moments i wondered if this film may have been better as a theatrical play rather than a movie. We expect a lot from movies as everything is possible, and yet with theatre we allow for interaction and rely on belief.

There are things wrong with it if your looking for a blockbuster, if you look for nothing and allow the film to take you in, move you, allow yourself to forget these stars, and not to judge them as actors but let them become people, you will truly ind yourself moved.

GO ON!! give it a go!

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43 out of 74 people found the following comment useful :-
Worth a glance if you're REALLY interested otherwise it's not worth the entrance fee., 19 June 2008

Author: anon_is_good from Edinburgh, Scotland

I went to see this as the Edinburgh Film Festival the other day and I have to say I was a bit disappointed.

The score and the cinematography were lush and gorgeous and the acting was very good but the script lacked characterisation. I realise that Dylan Thomas was not meant to have been an overly pleasant man, but I failed to see why the seemingly likable, headstrong character of Vera Phillips ever fell in love with him. He came across as completely selfish and sleazy with virtually no redeeming qualities and it frustrated me that there seemed to be no explanation for every woman fawning over him. Characters made choices out of the blue and eventually I just grew to dislike all the characters I have loved in the first half.

What also grated about this film is that sometimes I swear I could have been watching 'Atonement' the amount of time Keira Knightley said "Come back to me." I really hope she wasn't trying to relive the glory of 'Atonement' through this film because I am afraid she will be sorely disappointed. Even though I personally did not enjoy 'Atonement' I can recognise that it is a marvellous film and sadly "The Edge of Love" just cannot compare.

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26 out of 41 people found the following comment useful :-
Best British Film of the Year?, 17 June 2008

Author: Chris Docker (eyeforfilm) from Scotland, United Kingdom

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

Can you capture the moment? When first you hear rain on a roof? Some things are beyond the sum of their parts, expressing the poetry of life. The things that matter.

Poet Dylan Thomas captured the seemingly inexpressible "A good poem helps to . . . extend everyone's knowledge, of himself and the world around him." (Bob Dylan named himself after him). So why has it taken so long to make a film of the great Dylan Thomas? A simple biopic could have missed the point. Writer Sharman Macdonald has taken a different, better approach.

In The Edge of Love, she creates the world of passions and complexities that fill the poems so we can swim in them. The lives of four friends. Dylan, who lusts and loves to the full. Wife Caitlin (Sienna Miller), his feisty support. War-hero William (Cillian Murphy), who saves him from a street brawl. And then there's his childhood sweetheart. Vera. Dear Vera. Take your breath away Vera. She's Caitlin's closest friend. William's wife. And, like a muse, the 'star' in Dylan's dark sky.

It all kicks off in the 1940 London Blitz, with bomb shelters in the Underground. Enter Vera (an impressive Keira Knightley) under makeshift stage spotlights. She meets Dylan for the first time again in years, her heart is flushed. Their eyes shine through the smoke of the room. The purity of their former passion. Dylan (native Welsh-speaker, Matthew Rhys) is no sanctified, sanitised poet. Master of his vices he must experience them all fully. He introduces his beloved wife then continues to woo Vera.

The Edge of Love is a visual treat. The soundtrack leaves you wanting for more. Performances are possibly the best by these actors in their careers. As a lush love story it's pretty good. As an insight into Dylan Thomas and the reality of poetry in all our lives, not bad at all. And as a tribute to a great man, inspiring.

The production has been at pains to project the spirit of Dylan Thomas without compromising historical accuracy too much. Dramatic tension involves a pull between artistic freedom and conventional morality. Audiences looking for an experience based on the latter may be disappointed. And it will play less well to audiences whose boundaries are those of Albert Square.

Sharman Macdonald seemed aware of the headstrong nature of artistic freedom and its limits when she spoke to producer Rebekah Gilbertson (granddaughter of the real William and Vera). "Think of all the things that you don't want me to write about," she said," because I have to have carte blanche." For Macdonald, the limits were if she should cause offence to Dylan's memory. But for many artists, especially men, the limits are those which wife and family could set on them. A woman is not going to let lofty ideals interfere with practical common sense issues, and will even put her children's interests before her own (This occasionally happens the other way round, as when towering genius Virginia Woolf refused to let loving Leonard bring her down to earth - in The Hours).

In spite of the tension between Caitlin and Vera, these two women become closest buddies. It is one of the main (and very beautiful) themes of the film.

The film's colours tell a story in themselves. In a drab, wartime Britain, Caitlin and Vera are vivid highlights in an ocean of grey. Shortly after meeting Vera's lit-up-in-lights stage persona, we encounter Caitlin through her searing blue eyes, sparkling in a darkened railway carriage. Her dramatic red coat cuts a dash through streets of colourless homogeneity, triumphing on a beautiful staircase as she reunites with Dylan. But Vera's lipstick red brightness is less enduring. For her, marriage is second-best, even when she has become possessed with genuine love for her husband.

Outstanding cinematography extends to using montage to juxtapose images, in a manner similar to poetry's juxtaposition of unrelated words to create further meaning. Horrific war scenes in Thessaly are intercut with screams of Vera in pregnancy. Giving birth or is it abortion? We are not told immediately. Pain is universal and goes beyond time and place to our present day.

Constant echoes of Dylan's poetry throughout the film lead us beyond earthly opposites. It reminds me of Marlon Brando reading TS Eliot in Apocalypse Now. A light beyond the horrors of the world. A different way of seeing things. "I'll take you back to a time when no bombs fell from the sky and no-one died – ever," says Dylan to Vera as they walk along the beach. Elsewhere, Caitlin recalls childhood with Vera: "We're still innocent in Dylan," she says.

There's a time to leave your knickers at home or share a universal cigarette. (Not literally, perhaps.) A time to be inspired. Enjoy what is possibly the best British film of the year.

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11 out of 12 people found the following comment useful :-
Moments of Cinematic Beauty, 19 February 2009

Author: Chinarose77 from United Kingdom

Naturally, before watching this film, ones expectations are high. The tale of Dylan Thomas and his lovers promises to be exhilarating. The stars used in the production hold high promise. However the result is different. There is just something not quite right about this film.

Whilst it manages to capture the viewer with moments of cinematic beauty, The Edge of Love fails to entice. In some scenes the cinematography is perfect. The set design and costume cannot be faulted. The glamour and horror of the era are portrayed perfectly. But the story itself does not piece together. The sudden friendship of the two women seems too soon and lacking in explanation. The characters have little depth and I felt no real sympathy for any of them. It almost seems as if several crucial scenes were omitted.

The film itself is fairly disappointing, but perhaps worth watching for the moments when everything comes together because when this happens the film is stunning.

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17 out of 28 people found the following comment useful :-
Meandering, 17 July 2008

Author: Framescourer from London, UK

An odd, willfully skewed biopic of Dyan Thomas in which we hear little more than a dozen lines of his poetry. Instead we have to endure a raw character exposée seen through the prism of his proto-bigamous relationship with wife (Sienna Miller) and childhood love (Keira Knightley). Matthew Rhys plays Thomas with sufficient charm to inoculate us against his otherwise repellent self-interest and Cillian Murphy makes up the persistently tense lovetet.

The film never seems to decide on where it's going. There's no arc so much as a viaduct from one end of the war to the other. Maybury seems much more interested in his two female leads (who wouldn't!?) than in the man who brings them together and then divides them. Miller is the choice of the two (I found Knightley competent at best but then I have never found her sympathetic) but they both offer dreadfully inconsistent Welsh accents. Other funny decisions include too much for the inconsequential character of William (Murphy), arty production (eg double crossfades) that is neither impressionist nor symbolic and the old chestnut act of period footage which doesn't blend. 4/10

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8 out of 11 people found the following comment useful :-
In a word "re-Atonement", 11 November 2008

Author: gannett from United Kingdom

With its ww2 timing, falling in and out of love, and easy on the eye Kira, this is re-Atonement.

This a relationship story with focused main characters working out the the balance between first and fast love in the home front of WW2. Poet Dylan Thomas philanders his way between wife and ex in dark and smoky Blitz London and later in windy wales.

Vera's ex and next spark off each other as the poet and soldier become a sideline while the girls bond and share. An easy watch that works well in the era bouncing along with just a few dips in pace. Would work well with French subtitles but then I may have been to too many art house movies lately.

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9 out of 13 people found the following comment useful :-
Gritty Shades of Black...with One shining light., 23 June 2008

Author: lostidols from United States

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

I was fortunate to attend the London premier of this film. While I am not at all a fan of British drama, I did find myself deeply moved by the characters and the BAD CHOICES they made. I was in tears by the end of the film. Every scene was mesmerizing. The attention to detail and the excellent acting was quite impressive.

I would have to agree with some of the other comments here which question why all these women were throwing themselves at such a despicable character.

*******SPOLIER ALERT******** I was also hoping that Dylan would have been killed by William when he had the chance! ****END SPOILER*****

Keira Knightley did a great job and radiate beauty and innocence from the screen, but it was Sienna Miller's performance that was truly Oscar worthy.

I am sure this production will be nominated for other awards.

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11 out of 17 people found the following comment useful :-
Love divided by four., 7 October 2008

Author: detkor from Belgium

Despite the title and unlike some other stories about love and war, this film isn't too sticky and pink, because love is as a rose: With thorns, that is. The four leading actors set their characters realistic and with a good sense and balance between the tragic and the down-to-earth.

The music and lyrics of the cabaret/chanson-esquire songs (sung b Keira Knightley herself) drag the viewer deeper and deeper in the film, from one place to another, between the brutal war and amongst the peaceful love. Some people may find it too much a biopic, but it ís mostly a romantic story, even though it consequently follows the life of Dylan Thomas and the triangular relationship which is steeped by joy and jealousy.

London gets visualized from another angle for once, the bohemian life of Dylan during the bombings of the Germans is set in a floating atmosphere of small bedrooms, pubs and bars. The independent women, the soldier and the charismatic poet are constantly swept in both feelings of love and anger.

Maybe the end is too twisted and hangs somewhat loosely to the rest of the film, but all in all this is a great romantic story.

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11 out of 17 people found the following comment useful :-
Gritty Shades of Black...with One shining light., 23 June 2008

Author: lostidols from United States

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

I was fortunate to attend the London premier of this film. While I am not at all a fan of British drama, I did find myself deeply moved by the characters and the BAD CHOICES they made. I was in tears by the end of the film. Every scene was mesmerizing. The attention to detail and the excellent acting was quite impressive.

I would have to agree with some of the other comments here which question why all these women were throwing themselves at such a despicable character.

*******SPOLIER ALERT******** I was also hoping that Dylan would have been killed by William when he had the chance! ****END SPOILER*****

Keira Knightley did a great job and radiate beauty and innocence from the screen, but it was Sienna Miller's performance that was truly Oscar worthy.

I am sure this production will be nominated for other awards.

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