The Edge of Love Reviews & Ratings - IMDb IMDb 60 out of 73 people found the following review useful: Not a bad film. Just one that could have been better from Birmingham, England 1 July 2008 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. Was the above review useful to you? 36 out of 43 people found the following review useful: Moments of Cinematic Beauty from United Kingdom 19 February 2009 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.

Was the above review useful to you? 55 out of 91 people found the following review useful: Worth a glance if you're REALLY interested otherwise it's not worth the entrance fee. from Edinburgh, Scotland 19 June 2008 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. Was the above review useful to you? 47 out of 79 people found the following review useful: Give it a go.. from United Kingdom 8 July 2008 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! Was the above review useful to you? 36 out of 58 people found the following review useful: Best British Film of the Year? 17 June 2008 *** This review 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.

Was the above review useful to you? 20 out of 28 people found the following review useful: Love divided by four. from Belgium 7 October 2008 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. Was the above review useful to you? 19 out of 27 people found the following review useful: A humanistic tale from United Kingdom 13 July 2008 Set during the Second World War in both London and Wales, this film portrays the complex relationships between four real-life characters: the Welsh poet Dylan Thomas (played by Welsh actor Matthew Rhys abandoning his American accent from the US television series "Brothers And Sisters"), his Irish wife Caitlin MacNamara (British actress Sienna Miller), his first love Vera Phillips (another British actress Keira Knightley) and Vera's husband the British soldier Captain William Killick (Irish actor Cillian Murphy). Many of the incidents represented are a matter of record but other occurrences are simply speculation on the part of screenwriter Sharman Macdonald (Knightley's mother). In truth, it is Keira Knightley's film.

Her striking physiognomy always makes her a pleasure to watch, but this is the finest performance of her young (still only 23) career, as she effects a decent Welsh accent and even sings in a nuanced act of thespian of which she can be proud. Director John Maybury does not make the character or the poetry of Dylan Thomas any more accessible but the bonding and bruising between his wife and his lover make for a humanistic tale. Was the above review useful to you? 10 out of 13 people found the following review useful: With "friends" like these, who needs the Wehrmacht...? 10 October 2008 *** This review may contain spoilers *** This will be rough and tumbly, as I've just watched the film under less-than-ideal (ahem) circumstances.

Let me say first off that I feel sorry for fans of Dylan Thomas: Matthew Rhys is charming beneath his mop of dark curls, his eyes twinkle with mischief, and his expressive voice lends itself well to what few lines of Thomas's poetry he recites, but Dylan Thomas as a character in this film is such an abominable wastrel and a cad that at best he's Satan with a pot-belly and a Welsh accent. Apologies, too, for this being all over the map. What doesn't work about the film, or seems to work against the filmmakers' intent: Dylan the cad, as above noted. Then the "friendship" between Caitlin Thomas and Vera Phillips, which seems pasted into the film from a photoshoot of Forties style between Sienna Miller (Irish accent off-and-on, and perpetually atrocious) and Keira Knightley (in full shrill-and-brittle mode, right up until the last twenty minutes).

In declaring herself "an independent woman" to her admirer and future husband William Killick (Cillian Murphy, and more on him below), she seems to be speaking-- abrasively-- from some future era of organized feminism, a young woman of the Sixties dropped into the Blitz. In film time, Killick's patience with her outlasted mine by about an hour and ten minutes. Other unworkables: A most unconvincing Blitz. I know that the war isn't the focus of the film, and they had to be shooting on a tight budget, but the grainy newsreel bits just don't cut it. (Nor, especially, does a flashback sequence toward the end, shot to look like an old home movie-- and where, I wondered, did they get the color film stock for those home movies when color film was being rationed even to the major studios?-- which comes off as saccharine and desperate.) Killick, waging war in a Greece that looks exactly like the shale quarry used in any thousand old Doctor Who episodes, doesn't fare much better, but the shock and resolute terror in Murphy's extraordinary blue eyes lend a jarring reality to the material.

Another shortfall: There's no story, really, no arc. There's a dramatic "bump" in the last reel, but all in all it's the rambling tale of two ostensibly despicable people (those being Dylan and Caitlin) who sponge off a truly decent person (poor Bill Killick) through the medium of a person who ought to know better, and who may or may not deserve to profit from the lesson she learns about love and fidelity en route (that, of course, being Vera). A final grumble, and one that might sound perverse: if those involved in a production feel uncomfortable about staging intimate scenes, might we please return to the dignified days of the discreet fade-out? Not that simulated intercourse isn't ever less than awkward on screen, but if you must resort to shooting a love scene in a way that makes it seem as if we're watching the participants-- here Vera and William-- through a kaleidoscope, then please: cut the scene or call for a rewrite. What works: The film looks good, in a can-do Masterpiece Theatre way. The Welsh coast is stunning and bleak, all misty light.

Keira Knightley's singing voice is surprisingly sweet (which gives one hope that she won't do too great a disservice to "My Fair Lady"). Ms. Knightley herself, despite her prickly defensiveness in the film's early scenes, exhibits a quiet strength and maturity toward the end: a new thing for her, and most refreshing. But the show belongs to Cillian Murphy. I think this is his best role to date. From the dashing romanticism of Killick in the film's early scenes to the battle-stunned soldier-come-home later on, he brings true shading and subtlety to the film. More importantly, he brings humanity. Dylan sweet-talks most effectively (he's a writer, after all), but the poetry of the film lies in William. He's the angel to Thomas's demon, and without him "The Edge of Love" would be a sad, bitter, ultimately pointless affair. Was the above review useful to you? 22 out of 37 people found the following review useful: This film has moments of cinematic beauty.

from United Kingdom 28 June 2008 Welsh poet Dylan Thomas excused from serving in active duty is doing his bit for the war effort producing bits of prose for some propaganda branch of government in Whitehall. Thomas is portrayed as a freethinker believing in free love married to a woman with an equally demanding artistic streak and likewise with a penchant for extramarital romance. Thomas writing and reciting his poetry in systematic domestic mayhem throughout becomes somewhat priggish towards the end, resting somewhat uncomfortably on his society connections and pulling rank on a war veteran, who had shot up his house, and who was incidentally married to the woman he had been having an affair with. The real story of this film is the love of two women, one (Keira Knightley) whose first love was Thomas (Matthew Rhys), the second (Sienna Miller) who is Thomas's wife. At times it reminds of The Singing Detective, as in very good television with slightly sinister overtones laid on top of scenes of surreal camp absurdity. Was the above review useful to you?

6 out of 7 people found the following review useful: At times, edge of seat stuff from Scotland, United Kingdom 23 July 2009 This is primarily about love in WWII, yet we must remember that it's also a biopic for Dylan Thomas and those around him at this particular stage in his life. The movie's timing is just great. It really captures what I think would have been the spirit during those times; smiling and hoping you're not going to get bombed. While it may prove boring to some, the movie does have a particularly dangerous edge to it. At one point, my heart was racing towards the end as the movie hits its climax. It really does feature some poignant moments that are handled with skill by the four main actors. Cillian Murphy is on fine form here, as is Matthew Rhys. Both are polar opposites and it makes for an interesting watch. The relationship formed between Sienna Miller and Keira Knightley's characters is wonderful and we have the acting to thank (and watch out for a cameo by Suggs of 'Madness'). Despite all of this, it's a rather slow movie.

Coupled with the fact it's just shy of two hours, it's quite a slog to get to the conclusion. Overall, it's a solid non-fiction war movie with many wonderfully crafted moments that were no doubt helped by the splendid number of well-known British names behind the scenes. But it really does drone on for too much at times. Still, a worthwhile watch. 7/10 Was the above review useful to you? Page 1 of 6: At the Movies: Edge Of Love At the Movies Re: Famous Australian surf documentaries etc.? Pentimento says: "Hi Dfle, Wish I cld help, but I wasn't here (in Oz). There wasa ABC doco maybe 2-3yrs ..." More» Windows Media - Fast : Slow The passion and pathos of legendary poet Dylan Thomas is told through the lives of two extraordinary women... Margaret: Rated M Review by Margaret Pomeranz British director John Maybury made a stunning feature debut with his portrait of Francis Bacon in LOVE IS THE DEVIL. With THE EDGE OF LOVE he once again turns his attention to the world of the artist, this time to the Welsh poet Dylan Thomas played by MATTHEW RHYS.

But itï¿½s the women in Thomasï¿½s life who dominate this film. His wife Caitlin, played by SIENNA MILLER and his life-long friend and purported lover Vera Phillips, (KEIRA KNIGHTLEY). The Blitz is on in London in 1940 and Vera attracts the attention of a soldier, Captain William Killick, (CILLIAN MURPHY), adding a fourth element to an already volatile mix. THE EDGE OF LOVE emerged from a real and violent incident in Thomasï¿½s life but biographers dismiss the theory that Vera and Thomas were lovers. However, the screenplay by Keira Knightleyï¿½s mother Sharman MacDonald depicts their sexual relationship as a fact, forming the basis for the tensions underlying the friendship between Caitlin and Vera, and eventually between William and Dylan Thomas. Thereï¿½s something missing at the heart of this film and for me it was the relationship between Dylan and Caitlin. The focus is very much on the two women, both charmingly played however by the two young actresses Miller and Knightly.

Dylan Thomas is depicted as a bit of a boor by MATTHEW RHYS, itï¿½s a sketch portrait of the artist as a selfish drunk. Now maybe thatï¿½s accurate but heï¿½s not fleshed out in any meaningful way. After LOVE IS THE DEVIL, EDGE OF LOVE is a disappointment. Maybury is an artist himself but he seems to have gone for the soft option with this. Further comments MARGARET: Did you feel, David? DAVID: I did, yes. I agree with you pretty much. I mean it could almost have been a James Ivory film, this. It's on that sort of a level. It's a very handsome production. It looks beautiful. I agree with you. I think the focus is on the two women and both the actors are extremely good. I must say I don't know very much about Dylan Thomas, so I don't know really the facts of all of this story. I mean it makes an interesting, intriguing sort of story but you're suggesting that it's not... MARGARET: Well, no. Well, I read up about it, you know. DAVID: Yeah.

MARGARET: Well, I tried to research it a bit and, I mean, there is grave doubt about the fact that they were ever lovers and, you know, to have a screenplay that's really based on that sexual relationship... DAVID: Yeah. MARGARET: ...you know previously and during the film, it's - I don't know. DAVID: It seems a bit... MARGARET: It worries me a bit. DAVID: It seems a little bit strange, yeah. MARGARET: Yeah. DAVID: And certainly LOVE IS THE DEVIL was such an original and arresting first feature that this, inevitably, is a bit of a disappointment, I think. But, look, it's not bad at all and there's enough good things in it for me to give it three and a half. MARGARET: I'm giving it three. Your rating: Edge Of Love Thank you. Your comment and rating will appear below once approved. To review or discuss this movie in more detail, please use the message board . Name: 28/09/2009 5:10 PMName: lala Rating: Comment: I really really like this film.

I thought it was just beautiful. I absolutely fell in love with the characters. It is a film for a lazy Sunday...not one if you are looking for a lot of excitement. 14/08/2009 10:04 PMName: kate Rating: Comment: I found it unconvincing in every way. No real sense of the characters. Unpleasant, even. I gave up on it. 21/06/2009 10:20 PMName: Leigh Rating: Comment: An initially interesting story that starts off beautifully and is well acted throughout is destroyed by the way the whole thing was depicted. It was a strange way to make this, there felt like there was no order to the story. It was dull and i was bored for three quarters of the running time. 3/06/2009 3:55 PMName: Orla Rating: Comment: Matthew Rhys' portrayal of the famous welsh bard is beguilingly sexy, but he still comes across as a selfish b*****d.

Just watched the DVD, and I liked the movie much more after listening to the commentary - Maybury & Rhys obviously get on well, and are worth listening to. Not the best british film I've ever seen, but I'd watch it again. It's well acted, nicely directed and the production design is lovely. If you're a Thomas fan, this isn't a bad way to spend a quiet afternoon. 25/03/2009 3:13 PMName: Vivienne Peters Rating: Comment: This movie could have been so much better if it hadn't been for the saturation levels of cigarette smoking. Every second scene and pose seemed scripted to display smoking behaviour in the most favourable light. The character Vera was even depicted smoking whilst pregnant. If tabacco company funding was provided on the basis of the number of cigarettes smoked in this film, then it must have made a killing indeed. Shameful! 5/10/2008 11:48 PMName: John Rating: Comment: While this film is undoubtedly visually pretty to look at, I found it vacuous, boring and poorly scripted.

After about 45 minutes waiting for something interesting to happen, or for a meaningful point to be made about love or anything else, I concluded it was heading nowhere and walked out. 5/10/2008 6:03 PMName: Carol Rating: Comment: Dark and dreary - even the scenes by the sea. OK, it must have been dark and dreary in the air raid shelters, but the overwhelming dreary scenery turned me off. I longed for the Australian outback (which would have been totally inappropriate, I know). Didn't care about the characters either. 23/09/2008 10:01 PMName: Alan Elliott Rating: Comment: Interesting story but badly filmed (too much arty-farty nonsense) and with an appallingly bad soundtrack. Much of the dialogue was drowned by background noise. Not enough of Dylan's poetry and much of that was inaudible. When will over-intrusive sound engineers wake up to themselves? A film which offered so much was a disappointment.

11/09/2008 11:52 PMName: Bronwyn Rating: Comment: Completely agree with Margaret & David but I can only give it 2.5 stars. A strange film, rather drab and depressing with self-indulgent characters that are difficult to like. Thought Keira & Sienna were beautiful & I felt for their characters but the male characters left me cold. Spent the duration of the film wondering where it was going and couldn't wait for it to finish. 6/09/2008 12:43 PMName: Trudel Rating: Comment: Somewhat convulated... and languishing. Demonstrates downside of Dylan the poet - irresponsible, spoilt - havinghigh opinion of self - women being "his objects". Lesson in friendship - ""you are my friend - no sleep with my husband - no matter what I think of him"". Felt need to clean up clothes - so much smoking - a wonder they did not all get lung cancer!! ;) - sad when cigarettes had a greater priority to food and the welbeing of children. - but then smoking was classified was glamorous.

Overall:: I am glad I saw it - would not view it a second time.. 29/08/2008 1:27 PMName: Daniel Rating: Comment: It starts of visually appealing and then is a sleep inspiring event. A meandering, boring plot with totally unintersting characters except for Cillian Murphy's. 27/08/2008 12:28 AMName: Sean Rating: Comment: A beautiful movie, with great acting and complex characters, a very interesting story, great music, and breath taking cinematography. I found it a movie that hit me deeply and I was moved. Keira Knightley keeps getting better and better as an actress. Well worth seeing! 25/08/2008 12:43 AMName: Patricia Rating: Comment: It is quite boring at times although Sienna Miller and Cillian Murphy are excellent in their respective roles as Caitlin and William. Post traumatic stress disorder for returning soldiers is a sub-theme that is handled well and this makes the film for meaningful and interesting. The cinematography is brilliant, especially the scenes showing the coast of Wales.

Lots of dramatic red lipstick worn by Knightly who is gorgeous as usual. Overall, a good film but it could have focused more on the reasons, other than the Vera factor, as to why the character of Dylan Thomas seemed melancholic most of the time. Production details Release details: Limited National Release. Check newspapers for screening details. Classification: M The Edge Of Love (2008) Movie Review from Eye for Film View Large Trailer Maybury, who previously won The Michael Powell Award at this very film festival for his impressive directorial debut Love Is The Devil, is clearly interested in depicting intense relationships in claustrophobic settings. Here, he projects the same qualities but with a bigger and more ambitious palette. The thematic and visual similarities between the films are very apparent but here the production values (and obviously the budget) are greatly magnified. Although Maybury’s second feature The Jacket could also be described as claustrophobic, with an intense relationship at its heart, the only thing he’s taken from that disappointing turn is its female lead, Keira Knightley, who here plays Vera Phillips, Dylan Thomas’ first love and childhood friend.

It’s a good performance from Knightley but nowhere near the heights of her extraordinarily accomplished turn in Joe Wright’s magnificent version of Pride And Prejudice , nor the quality of her appearance in the same director's later work, Atonement . And there are some strange parallels between those films. Something that might unfortunately jar for Edge Of Love audiences are the visual similarities between her role in Maybury’s new film and Atonement. Seeing her once again in period costume in the same era, once again walking through London’s underground and once again dealing with her lover going off to fight and be traumatised in the same war was for me a distracting comparison to have come so soon afterwards. A colleague leaned over during the screening and whispered, "Are we watching Atonement again?", so I obviously wasn’t alone in thinking this. But these are minor quibbles, for overall this is a riveting relationship drama that sucks you into the intricacies of two couples trying and essentially failing to share each other's love and friendship. The first half of the film belongs to the poet, reluctantly employed in the war effort providing patriotic voiceovers for propaganda films.

After running into Vera in a bar, the flame of his childhood love with her is brightly rekindled, which doesn’t sit too well with his wife Caitlin (played by Sienna Miller, still going from strength to strength after her roles in The Factory and Interview). The two women begin an initially awkward friendship with Dylan placing himself squarely in the middle, jostling for the affections of both. As if this isn't enough of a pickle, along comes the handsome and broodingly intense Sergeant Killick (Cillian Murphy) whose involvement in the story dominates the second half of the film. Coupling off with Vera and moving into the same squalid household, the joyful sharing of friendships and love is matched only by the bitter jealousies, suspicions and simmering resentments that build up under the surface. This eventually leads to an explosive confrontation revealing either the noble or sadly pathetic qualities dormant in each character. But it’s only at the end in a moving moment of sudden heartbreaking realisation that we realise the whole film is really about the demise of one great friendship within the whole quartet. But for me it was Cillian Murphy’s traumatised sergeant who stole the film.

In all of his roles he’s had a bit of a light around him as an actor, with a truthful simplicity to his gestures and mannerisms. You can’t take your eyes off him in every scene he’s in, even when he’s in the background, and his depiction of a slightly shell-shocked soldier in a world that then didn’t know of such things lingered in my mind long afterwards. The Edge Of Love is let down by a more rambling and incoherent second half where we don’t get a real sense of who the drama is really about, and at times it is hard to sympathise with any of the characters, as they rarely rise above their petty needs, insecurities and tragic behaviour. In terms of dramatic strength, the penultimate scene, an act of courtroom betrayal by Dylan Thomas (which really did take place – albeit perhaps for different reasons), risks killing the film and sympathy for two of the main characters stone dead. Fortunately the film is resurrected by the last scene. It's a sumptuously made and hypnotic film, beautifully lensed by Jonathan Freeman with impressive production design and art direction.

There’s one terrific scene with an almost Gone With The Wind-esque quality when Vera starts singing in Killick’s arms against the backdrop of wartime flames and destruction. I wish this had lasted longer so as to linger on the pleasure of seeing a moment of pure cinema, that strange and wonderful place films rarely go, when they do something a little off the beaten track. Here they cut away from it too soon but it's still a great little sequence. This doesn't really break any new ground but purely on a technical level The Edge Of Love is an enjoyable and accomplished achievement. Reviewed on: 22 Jun 2008 Share this with others on... The Edge of Love | Film from RadioTimes The Edge of Love Video clips are automatically supplied by broadcasters and distributors. RadioTimes.com is not responsible for the clip's contents. John Maybury (2008) Our Score by Karen Krizanovich This emotionally charged drama loosely based on real events stars Keira Knightley as Vera Phillips, the childhood sweetheart of poet Dylan Thomas (Matthew Rhys), and tells the story of what happens when she runs into her married ex-lover in war-torn London.

When Thomas and his wife Caitlin (Sienna Miller) are evicted, Vera - now working as a nightclub singer and herself the object of infatuation by army captain William Killick (Cillian Murphy) - invites them to stay. It soon becomes evident that three's a crowd, and the situation doesn't improve when Vera marries her soldier boy on the eve of his posting overseas, and Thomas and the two women move to rural Wales. Director John Maybury's intense story of two women caught in the orbit of a remarkable man has its shortcomings, but it looks wonderful and is rich in period detail. Any lapses in the narrative are compensated for by uniformly good performances, with Knightley (who does her own singing) acquitting herself particularly well. Summary The renowned poet Dylan Thomas is unexpectedly reunited with his former lover Vera Phillips, both of them having married in the meantime. Passion is soon reignited between the pair, but surprisingly, Vera also forms a very close friendship with Thomas' wife. Fact-based period drama, starring Keira Knightley, Sienna Miller, Cillian Murphy and Matthew Rhys.

Cast & Crew "The Edge of Love" - Keira Knightley - Pictures - CBS News "Begin Again" Keira Knightley attends the 2014 Tribeca Film Festival, April 26, 2014 in New York City. The actress who has garnered fame and fans from tentpole blockbusters (the "Pirates of the Caribbean" series) and period costume dramas ("Pride & Prejudice," "Atonement," "The Duchess," "Anna Karenina") said to CBS News' Mark Phillips, "I was actually told that in the last five years I made 10 films and I died in seven of them! So, I sort of thought at the end of 'Anna Karenina' that I should maybe do something that had at least a little hope in it." Which led her to the new romantic comedy "Begin Again," playing a young singer whose collaboration with a producer may lead to more than just record sales. By CBSNews.com senior producer David Morgan Credit: Neilson Barnard/Getty Images "A Village Affair" Left: Keira Knightley in the 1995 British TV movie "A Village Affair," as a young girl whose mother begins an affair with another woman.

Knightley was born in 1985 to Sharman MacDonald, a Scottish actress and playwright, and actor Will Knightley. It didn't take long for the acting bug to bite; at an age when most children ask for toys, Knightley wanted an agent. But she had trouble in school and was diagnosed with dyslexia when she was six. Dangling the carrot of an agent encouraged Knightley to work harder at her studies. "I had to come to her with a book in my hand and a smile on my face every day through the summer holidays when I was 6. And, at the end, I was allowed an agent," she told CBS News' Tracy Smith in 2007. Credit: ITV "Star Wars Episode I" Following such TV productions as "Oliver Twist," Knightley appeared in her first big feature film role - as Sabe, in "Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace" (left).

Credit: Lucasfilm "Princess of Thieves" Keira Knightley as the daughter of Robin Hood in the 2001 TV movie, "Princess of Thieves." Credit: Disney "The Hole" Keira Knightley costarred with Thora Birch, Desmond Harrington and Laurence Fox in "The Hole," a horror tale about four students who come across a mysterious underground chamber. Not all come out alive. Credit: Pathe "Bend It Like Beckham" Knightley's first brush with international stardom came at age 16, in a low-budget film about the lives of girls on a teenage soccer team. "I remember telling friends I was doing this girls' soccer movie called 'Bend It Like Beckham,'" Knightley told Tracy Smith. "And everybody laughed. It was sort of quite embarrassing, really. And nobody thought that it was gonna be any good." Good? "Bend It Like Bechkam:" was nominated for a Golden Globe for Best Picture (Comedy or Musical), and grossed more than $75 million worldwide.

Credit: Fox Searchlight "Bend It Like Beckham" Parminder Nagra (left), Keira Knightley (center) and Shazney Lewis arrive at the premiere of "Bend it Like Beckham," April 11, 2002 in London. Credit: Anthony Harvey/Getty Images "Doctor Zhivago" Kaira Knightley starred as Lara in the 2002 TV miniseries based on Boris Pasternack's "Doctor Zhivago," co-starring Sam Neill and Hans Matheson. Credit: ITV "Pirates of the Caribbean" Knightley said another film job that prompted doubts was "Pirates of the Caribbean" (left, with Johnny Depp). "I said it was based on a Disney theme park ride. And everyone just went, 'Oh, that sounds good. Yeah. Good luck with that one!'" Knightley said she was among those who wondered whether the film would work or not: "I remember being on set just sort of going, 'OK, what is this?

Is this any good?'" Credit: Disney "Pirates of the Caribbean" She also doubted being able to keep her job; she was so convinced that she wasn't going to last that she flew out to the "Pirates" location with only a week's worth of clothes. Credit: Disney "Pirates of the Caribbean" Keira Knightley arrives at the world premiere of "Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl" on June 28, 2003 at Disneyland in Anaheim, California. Credit: Amanda Edwards/Getty Images "Love Actually" In the omnibus film "Love Actually" (2003), Keira Knightley stars as a young bride who is the secret infatuation of her husband's best man (Andrew Lincoln).

Credit: Universal Pictures "King Arthur" This is not your grandfather's Guinevere: Keira Knightley as the warrior princess in the 2004 adventure "King Arthur." Credit: Buena Vista Pictures "King Arthur" Actors Mads Mikkelson and Keira Knightley, director Antoine Fuqua and actor Hugh Dancy attend the world premiere of "King Arthur" at the Ziegfeld Theatre June 28, 2004 in New York City. Credit: Evan Agostini/Getty Images Sundance Film Festival Actress Kerira Knightley attends the Sundance Film Festival on January 22, 2005 in Park City, Utah. Credit: Evan Agostini/Getty Images "Pride & Prejudice" In "Pride & Prejudice" (2005), Keira Knightley starred as Jane Austen's heroine Elizabeth Bennet, who tries (and fails) to resist the attraction of a certain Mr. Darcy (Matthew Macfadyen). Knightley's performance earned her Academy Award and Golden Globe nominations for Best Actress.

Credit: Focus Features "Pride & Prejudice" Actress Keira Knightley attends the gala premiere of "Pride & Prejudice" at Roy Thomson Hall during the Toronto International Film Festival on September 11, 2005 in Toronto, Ontario. Credit: Evan Agostini/Getty Images "Pride & Prejudice" Keira Knightley participates in a press conference for the film "Pride & Prejudice" during the Toronto International Film Festival September 11, 2005 in Toronto, Ontario. Knightley told Tracy Smith that, unlike some actors in Hollywood, she never felt like she needed to change the way she looked, "which is quite amazing, because I've got wonky teeth. And I keep hearing about everybody going to Hollywood and, you know, their agents going, 'Straighten your teeth,' or, 'Whiten your teeth,' but nobody's ever said anything about my teeth. They're not straight, apparently.

But nobody's ever said anything, which is quite nice, I suppose." Credit: Evan Agostini/Getty Images Academy Awards Actress Keira Knightley arrives for the 78th Academy Awards at the Kodak Theater in Hollywood, Calif., March 5, 2006. The burgundy taffeta silk Vera Wang gown she wore was later put up for auction to help drought victims in East Africa. Credit: Robyn Beck/AFP/Getty Images Keira Knightley played a bounty hunter in the Tony Scott actioner "Domino" (2005). Credit: New Line Cinema "Domino" Keira Knightley arrives at the premiere of "Domino" at the Grauman’s Chinese Theatre on October 11, 2005 in Hollywood, California. Credit: Getty Images "Pirates of the Caribbean" Keira Knightley reprised her role as "Elizabeth Swann in two "Pirates of the Caribbean" sequels, filmed back-to-back and released as "Dead Man's Chest" (2006) and "At World's End" (2007).

Credit: Disney Geoffrey Rush, Keira Knightley and Johnny Depp in "Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End." Credit: Disney "Atonement" In "Atonement," adapted from the novel by Ian McEwan, Keira Knightley (left, wearing what became the film's iconic costume) played a haughty socialite ultimately transformed by love and duty as a nurse during World War II. She told Tracy Smith that she fell in love with the character the first time she read the script. "I think every role is challenging, but I definitely wanted to do something that was very definitely a woman as opposed to a girl. And the fact that she was difficult and on edge I thought was very appealing." Credit: Universal Pictures "Atonement" From left: Actors James McAvoy, Saoirse Ronan and Vanessa Redgrave, director Joe Wright, and actress Keira Knightley arrive for the screening of "Atonement" during the 64th Venice International Film Festival at Venice Lido August 29, 2007.

Credit: Alberto Pizzoli/AFP/Getty Images "Atonement" Keira Knightley and Saoirse Ronan attend the "Atonement" photocall during Day 1 of the 64th annual Venice Film Festival on August 29, 2007 in Venice, Italy. Credit: Pascal Le Segretain/Getty Images "Atonement" British acress Keira Knightley arrives September 4, 2007 for the U.S. premiere of "Atonement" in London. Credit: Shaun Curry/AFP/Getty Images British Academy Film Awards Keira Knightley arrives at the Orange British Academy Film Awards, at the Royal Opera House, February 10, 2008 in London, England. Credit: Chris Jackson/Getty Images for Orange London Keira Knightley is photographed as she walks towards the main stage at the O2 Wireless Festival in Hyde Park, London, June 16, 2007. Credit: Leon Neal/AFP/Getty Images "The Edge of Love" Loosely based on the life of Welsh poet Dylan Thomas, "The Edge of Love" starred Keira Knightley as a former lover of Thomas' who rekindles their affair many years later.

Credit: Capitol Films "The Duchess" In "The Duchess" (2008), a tale of adultery and 18th century feminism amid the landed gentry, Keira Knightley starred as Georgiana, the Duchess of Devonshire, who endured the affairs of her husband, the Duke (Ralph Fiennes), and his contempt for her inability to produce a male heir. Credit: Pathe "The Duchess" Keira Knightley shares a joke with the film crew as they rehearse a scene on the film set of "The Duchess," November 15 2007 in Bath, England. Credit: Matt Cardy/Getty Images "Last Night" In the drama "Last Night" (2010), Keira Knightley and Sam Worthington (top) play a couple confronting the possibilities of infidelity. Below: Knightley with Guillaume Canet. Credit: Miramax "Never Let Me Go" In the 2010 film version of Kazuo Ishiguro's dystopian novel, "Never Let Me Go," Keira Knightley, Carey Mulligan and Andrew Garfield play three former students of a unique boarding school who must come to terms with their preordained fates.

Credit: Fox Searchlight "Never Let Me Go" Carey Mulligan and Keira Knightley attend the photocall for "Never Let Me Go" at the 54th BFI London Film Festival, October 13, 2010 in London, England. Credit: Gareth Cattermole/Getty Images "A Dangerous Method" In David Cronenberg's "A Dangerous Method" (2011), about the fraught, competitive relationship between Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung, Keira Knightley starred as Sabina Spielrein, a hysteria patient who becomes the lover of Jung (Michael Fassbender), and, ultimately, a psychoanalyst herself. Credit: Sony Pictures Classics "A Dangerous Method" Actors Michael Fassbender, Sarah Gadon, director David Cronenberg, Keira Knightley, Vincent Cassel and Viggo Mortensen attend the premiere of "A Dangerous Method" during the 68th Venice Film Festival, September 2, 2011 in Venice, Italy.

Credit: Vittorio Zunino Celotto/Getty Images "A Dangerous Method" "A Dangerous Method" costars Keira Knightley and Viggo Mortensen are pictured at the 2011 Toronto International Film Festival on September 10, 2011. Credit: Toby Canham/Getty Images "Seeking a Friend for the End of the World" Keira Knightley and Steve Carell arrive at the premiere of the comedy, "Seeking a Friend for the End of the World," at the 2012 Los Angeles Film Festival, June 18, 2012 in Los Angeles, California. Credit: Angela Weiss/Getty Images "Anna Karenina" For her third collaboration with director Joe Wright, Keira Knightley starred in his highly-theatrical 2012 film of Leo Tolstoy's "Anna Karenina," with Knightley as the Russian aristocrat who has an ill-fated affair with Count Vronksy (Aaron-Taylor Johnson).

Credit: Focus Features Keria Knightley in "Anna Karenina." Credit: Focus Features "Anna Karenina" Keira Knightley participates in a Q&A session following a screening of "Anna Karenina," December 6, 2012 in Los Angeles. Credit: Jerod Harris/Getty Images "Anna Karenina" Keira Knightley attends the premiere of "Anna Karenina" at the ArcLight Cinemas on November 14, 2012 in Hollywood. Credit: Frazer Harrison/Getty Images "Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit" In the Tom Clancy-based thriller "Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit" (2014), Keira Knightley played a medical student and girlfriend of a CIA agent who joins in his undercover plot against a Russian tycoon (Kenneth Branagh). Credit: Paramount Pictures "Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit" Actors Keira Knightley and Chris Pine arrive at the Hollywood premiere of "Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit" at the TCL Chinese Theatre, January 15, 2014 in Hollywood, Calif.

Credit: Kevin Winter/Getty Images "Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit" Keira Knightley attends the British premiere of "Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit" on January 20, 2014 in London. Credit: Dave J. Hogan/Getty Images "Begin Again" Mark Ruffalo and Keira Knightley in "Begin Again," about a washed-up record producer who discovers a new voice in the singer-songwriter played by Knightley. Together they embark on recording an album. Credit: The Weinstein Company "Begin Again" "Begin Again" is a change of pace for Knightley, who's done many things in the movies, but never had to sing for a living, and for this film, from writer-director John Carney ("Once"), she had to fake playing a guitar. "I learned how to play the right chords at about the right time," she told correspondent Mark Phillips. "I couldn't sing and play the chords at the right time. But at least it looked like I could actually play the songs, [which is] the thing about acting! Yeah, that's it in a nutshell," she laughed.

Credit: The Weinstein Company "Laggies" Keira Knightley and Sam Rockwell attend the premiere of "Laggies" at the Eccles Center Theatre during the Sundance Film Festival, January 17, 2014 in Park City, Utah. Knightley plays a woman who, 10 years after graduating high school, has found it difficult to move on in her life - and winds up befriending yet another clique of teenagers. Credit: Jason Merritt/Getty Images "Begin Again" Singer/actor Adam Levine and actress Keira Knightley attend the "Begin Again" press conference at the Crosby Street Hotel, June 26, 2014 in New York City. Credit: Stephen Lovekin/Getty Images Wimbledon Left: Keira Knightley and her husband, musician James Righton of the Klaxons, sit in the Royal Box on Centre Court before the Ladies' Singles final match at Wimbledon, on July 5, 2014 in London. Credit: Clive Brunskill/Getty Images Actress Keira Knightley attends the Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah, January 18, 2014.

The Edge of Love (2008) | Pride & Prejudice (2005) Pride & Prejudice (2005) p&p avatars by antonella and other misc artists. thanks! [F4:pandp2005] Posts: 2,382 Post by Elizabeth Darcy on Apr 20, 2007 0:21:49 GMT -5 “The Best Time of Our Lives“ The Edge of Love Adds Cillian Murphy, Matthew Rhys Murphy and Rhys will join Keira Knightley and Lindsay Lohan in Dylan Thomas film. Cillian Murphy will turn in his Scarecrow mask to join the cast of The Best Time of Our Lives. The movie tells the story of poet Dylan Thomas, played by Matthew Rhys. Rhys is currently a costar on the series Brothers & Sisters, which airs on ABC. Lindsay Lohan plays the part of Thomas’ wife, Caitlin. Murphy (Batman Begins, 28 Days, Red Eye) is signed to play William Killick, the eventual husband of the film’s Vera Phillips, a childhood friend of the Thomases.

The movie will detail the complicated relationship between Phillips (Pirates of the Caribbean star, Keira Knightley) and the Thomases, and the sequence of events that culminates in Phillips and Killick assaulting the Thomas household with a hand grenade and a machine gun. The Best Time of Our Lives also made the headlines in October 2006. Actress Lindsay Lohan dropped a hint that her character’s relationship with Knightley’s character has a “lesbian undertone” of sorts. Also, other related news regarding this movie... LOHAN AND KNIGHTLEY IN SCREEN THREESOME? ContactMusic reports LINDSAY LOHAN and KEIRA KNIGHTLEY will set screens alight when they film a steamy threesome for their new movie BEST TIME OF OUR LIVES, according to reports. The film, about Welsh poet Dylan Thomas, will see Lohan portray Thomas' wife Caitlin MACNamara, while Knightley will star as the poet's childhood friend, Vera Phillips. And lead actor Matthew Rhys has tantalised male fans by hinting at a "menage a trois" involving the two beauties. He says, "There will be a bit of a menage a trois scene going on.

I hope I'm up for it!" The title is now The Edge of Love (formerly The Best Times of Our Lives )... Last Edit: May 30, 2007 9:57:27 GMT -5 by Elizabeth Darcy Click banner below to visit... p&p avatars by antonella and other misc artists. thanks! [F4:pandp2005] Posts: 2,382 Post by Elizabeth Darcy on May 9, 2007 17:17:43 GMT -5 Keira Knightley "furious" at Lindsay Lohan Keira Knightley and Lindsay Lohan have reportedly fallen out over the American actress's decision to withdraw from THE BEST TIME OF OUR LIVES film last week. Stunning Keira was said to be "furious" that Lindsay, who has recently finished her latest spell in rehab, decided to quit the film just three days before filming was due to start. Lindsay, 20, who has repeatedly been slammed by British tabloids for her lazy behaviour, pulled out due to "changes that were not to her liking", an insider told Life & Style magazine.

But Pirates of the Caribbean star Keira was unhappy that Lindsay had given the film the heave-ho, as she was involved in getting the MEAN GIRLS star to appear, while her mother also wrote the screenplay. The story focuses on Welsh bard DYLAN THOMAS, with Lindsay supposed to have been playing Thomas's wife Caitlin McNamara. Matthew Rhys was due to play the part of the poet with Keira as Vera Killick, wife of William – the man who tried to kill Thomas after fearing he had an affair with his wife. And the film was set to be a box-office smash after reports claimed Keira, Lindsay and Matthew's characters would be involved in a passionate threesome. However, Sienna Miller is now likely to step into the role, according to Variety. Source: contactmusic.com Speaking of Sienna Miller, she's officially cast in this movie and has replaced Lindsay Lohan. Also, they just started filming very recently... Here are some images (one from People.com)... TIME OF THEIR LIVES Sienna Miller and Keira Knightley are in-step for the rocky road ahead during filming of their new movie The Best Time of Our Lives in South Wales on Monday.

The screenplay for the historical drama was written by Knightley's mother Sharman Macdonald. Some On the set photos from Keira Forever Gallery. More on the set photos can be viewed here . Also, a lil' more info about this movie... The Best Time Of Our Lives title has been changed, maybe, to The Edge of Love- according to this BBC News article. The article says: Sienna Miller and Keira Knightley are shooting The Edge of Love with Welsh actor Matthew Rhys in New Quay... On Bank Holiday Monday, a small crowd got their first taste of the movie when Miller and Knightley clambered over rocks in costume in an area called Cei Bach. byatt lover Regular Member Across the Moors of Time and Sand, I Saught to Forget, but was Haunted by the Memory of Your...Face Posts: 142 Post by byatt lover on May 9, 2007 20:55:52 GMT -5 There was never going to be a threesome in this film!!!

stupid rumors Every Heart Makes a Wish, Mine Thought of Only You Post by mahsuri1284 on May 10, 2007 2:41:38 GMT -5 Ooooohh, Keira with a baby - how cute! Anyway, was Keira really involved in getting Lindsay to appear in the movie ? Credit : namva @chalidaclub.net p&p avatars by antonella and other misc artists. thanks! [F4:pandp2005] Posts: 2,382 Post by Elizabeth Darcy on May 11, 2007 10:18:08 GMT -5 Yeah, those Keira with a baby pictures were so cute, indeed. Hmm, I don't know but the article, "KK was furious with LL," I posted above was saying that: as she was involved in getting the MEAN GIRLS star to appear, while her mother also wrote the screenplay. Don't know how true or reliable that part of the article of Keira's involvement in getting LL in the movie other than Keira's Mom writing the screenplay, which was true, of course. Click banner below to visit...

p&p avatars by antonella and other misc artists. thanks! [F4:pandp2005] Posts: 2,382 Post by Elizabeth Darcy on May 15, 2007 23:55:17 GMT -5 More Behind the Scenes photos of this movie's filming from Just Jared site: Here are some random ones with Keira on it... More images can be viewed here . Also, from People.com WHEN IT RAINS? Keira Knightley takes preemptive cover while filming The Best Time of Our Lives Wednesday in South Wales. The romantic drama costars Sienna Miller and Cillian Murphy. Click banner below to visit... p&p avatars by antonella and other misc artists. thanks! [F4:pandp2005] Posts: 2,382 Back to Top Post by Elizabeth Darcy on May 28, 2007 11:32:30 GMT -5 This movie's title has been changed to The Edge of Love...so I edited the title of this thread. Click banner below to visit... p&p avatars by antonella and other misc artists. thanks!

[F4:pandp2005] Posts: 2,382 Back to Top Post by Elizabeth Darcy on May 30, 2007 9:56:04 GMT -5 More images of Keira and co-stars Matthew Rhys and Cillian Murphy on set of their movie, The Edge of Love... Keira with Matthew Rhys... p&p avatars by antonella and other misc artists. thanks! [F4:pandp2005] Posts: 2,382 Post by Elizabeth Darcy on Jun 17, 2007 20:09:07 GMT -5 Keira Knightley sings in The Edge of Love From oh no they didn't Live Journal: Songbird Keira belts them out with Dylan Keira Knightley was insistent she couldn't carry a tune, but John Maybury, director of her latest movie, a wartime drama about Dylan Thomas, two wives and a jealous husband, begs to differ.

He jokes: "In the Thirties it was 'Garbo talks!' Well, now it's 'Knightley sings!' Keira says that because her character, Vera Phillips, a childhood friend of the larrikin poet, cries when she sings, the tears "do something to your larynx. I really freaked out because I'm not normally flat, but performing and crying at the same time does that." It wasn't helped, she added, by a case of nerves so bad she thought she was going to "projectile vomit over all the extras". When I hear her sing Love Locked Out, one of several numbers in the film, I'm impressed with her voice, which, as her singing teacher Claire Wilford observed, "has got hold of the vulnerability of the character". "At least it is my singing voice," Keira told me. "It isn't great, but it's passable." This particular scene is being shot hundreds of feet below ground in London's old Aldwych Tube station, which is doubling as a bomb shelter, and it's full of World War II signs that read The Workers Are Fighting For Victory and Paper: Help Your Country To Send Your Waste Paper To The Nazis As Bombs.

Traipsing up and down those 120 steps (it feels like more, believe me) is no aid to singing perfection, although Maybury boasts the exercise "gives you steel buns". Watching Keira intently as she sings is actor Cillian Murphy, handsomely attired in a World War II Army officer's uniform. He plays her dashing future husband William Killick. The Edge Of Love is a powerful drama, inspired by true events, but much manipulated and exaggerated, says Maybury. He calls it "a four-way love story" involving brilliant poet Thomas (RADA-trained Matthew Rhys in a role he was born to play), his tempestuous wife Caitlin (Sienna Miller), Vera, a sculptress, described as a hippie before the hippie era, and Killick, the soldier she would later marry. The film is based on a screenplay by Sharman Macdonald, Keira's mother. Ms Macdonald wrote it after meeting Rebekah Gilbertson on a writing course. Gilbertson's story was about her grandparents - Vera Phillips and William Killick. The movie follows what happened when a shell-shocked Killick comes home from the battlefield.

He returns to find his wife living with Thomas and Caitlin and later, amid much drama, ends up in court when he fires a gun at the poet's home. Originally, Keira was going to play Caitlin. "But Vera's got that Welsh glamour, you know," she explains in a perfect accent. "Mum wrote Caitlin for me to play, but it was Vera who really spoke to me. We ended up having quite an argument about it. "Also, I think for Caitlin, you need a spirit that's much more like Sienna's. She's got that natural exuberance. "I think it's wonderful that she brings a bit of herself into the character. I think I would have had to dig a little deeper if I'd played Caitlin." Tellingly, Keira adds shyly: "Maybe I didn't want to." All the actors seem perfectly suited to their roles and, as Keira told me: "There's a carefree nature to the way they all lived against the bleak backdrop of war. "The way they lived, and drank and had sex and all the rest of it, that does make for great drama." In that vein, Rhys called Thomas the "rock 'n' roll poet".

"He liked to get p****d and hold court, and he liked that image. "He put on this whole act with this very plummy English accent and he sort of played a character, so it's a funny thing, playing someone who's playing someone." There have been many rumours of three-in-a-bed sex with Thomas, Caitlin and Vera, and a lesbian sex scene with Vera and Caitlin. "There's none of that," said Rhys, mournfully. "I get to snog them, but not both at the same time, mind." As producer Sarah Radclyffe put it: "There is a scene of three on a bed, but not doing 'it'. "Dylan does bed them both, but these scenes are done tastefully. Erotic and subtle are the words to describe it." Watching over all these events, admittedly with a wryly detatched eye, is Dylan Thomas's daughter Aeronwy Ellis who, for some London scenes, is a background artist, otherwise known as an extra. There's probably a poem in that somewhere. Originally, Lindsay Lohan was cast as Caitlin, but she botched a medical for the film's insurance and was forced to withdraw from the movie days before filming.

Luckily, Sienna Miller, a personal friend of director John Maybury, stepped in and she's proving to be a revelation. "What upsets me about Lindsay is that the people claiming bits of her pay cheque should be looking after her as a human being," says Maybury. "From Clara Bow of the silent era to Marilyn Monroe in the Fifties, there have always been these talented, beautiful women who deserve help from the people who are making fortunes off them." He added: "I will work with her at some point, because her personal intelligence, in the end, is what's going to save her." Click banner below to visit... Post by Elizabeth Darcy on Jul 22, 2007 23:56:33 GMT -5 byattlover said: wow...i'm excited for this movie Same here. In fact, I'm excited for all 3 upcoming Keira films: Silk, Atonement (more so on this because she's working with her P&P director JW again and co-star Brenda Blethyn ;)), and this film (The Edge of Love).

Speaking of TEOL, here's the poster art: rather early and rather similar to the one for Closer poster (which 2 of the actors Keira has co-starred before, Natalie Portman in [Star Wars: The Phantom Menace[/i] and Clive Owen in King Arthur). Click banner below to visit... Keira and Sienna get friendly in "The Edge of Love" - AfterEllen on May 19, 2008 I blogged last month about the U.K. June release date for upcoming British film The Edge of Love, starring Sienna Miller and Keira Knightley. A biopic about the Welsh poet Dylan Thomas, Edge features Miller as his wife, Caitlin MacNamara, and Knightley as his former flame, Vera Phillips. The movie has been on my radar – or rather my gaydar – since 2006, when Lindsay Lohan (who was then attached to star in Sienna Miller’s role) told MTV, “[Keira] is older than me, but she kind of has a mysterious relationship with my lover.

And then there’s somewhat of a lesbian undertone.” Although scriptwriter Sharman Macdonald (who is also Keira’s mum) has since made it clear that there won’t be any overt physical relationship between Knightley and Miller’s characters, all the suggestions have been that the emotional relationship between them will be central to the story. The trailer for the film is now out, and I’m not entirely sure what I think: It starts off promisingly, and the Brokeback Mountain echoes in the text make me giggle: “TWO WOMEN … A RIVALRY … THAT BECAME A FRIENDSHIP.” I’m just waiting for them to add “THAT BECAME A SECRET.” On the other hand, the Atonement echoes are less inspiring – not that I didn’t like that movie, but I’m not sure I need to watch Keira whisper “Come back” to her soldier lover all over again. It also looks like the heterosexual romances will be taking up quite a substantial part of the story. As well as the love triangle between Dylan, Caitlin and Vera, there is also the relationship between Vera and Captain William Killick (played by Cillian Murphy).

The real-life Killick provided the original inspiration for the movie when he opened fire on the Thomas home with a machine gun and a hand grenade in 1945, allegedly because of jealousy over his wife’s friendship with Thomas (although others have claimed it was actually over a pub brawl and had nothing to do with romance.) One thing the movie unequivocally will provide is a chance to hear Knightley sing. Apparently in her role as Vera she performs “Blue Tahitian Moon,” “Maybe It’s Because I Love You Too Much,” and “Drifting and Dreaming.” Though I’m disappointed that the trailer doesn’t focus more on the relationship between Knightley and Miller’s characters, I’m definitely still planning to see the movie. What about you? Has the trailer got you interested?

Question: Which British actress played Dylan Thomas's lover Vera Phillips in the 2008 film 'The Edge of Love'?
Answer: KEIRA KNIGHTLEY