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The Edge of Love
GQ U.K.
June 2008
By Alex Blimes
4 stars
On the night of March 6, 1945, in New Quay, Wales, a soldier named William Killick opened fire with a Sten gun on the exterior of the celebrated poet Dylan Thomas's flimsy, asbestos-walled bungalow. Inside, Thomas and his family—wife Caitlin and their two young children—were miraculously unharmed, but the incident and the ensuing court case caused much fevered speculation.
What had driven this handsome and intelligent man, a hero who had served with the SOE in Greece, to such rage? Could it be that his wife, Vera, a childhood friend of Thomas', had rekindled her teenage affair with the poet while her husband was away fighting? Was it true that Vera was also somehow involved with Mrs Thomas?
It's Killick's rampage and the questions it begs that provided the spark for Sharman Macdonald's screenplay and eventually John Maybury's terrific film. Far from a rote biopic of the boozy and boorish Thomas and his tortured circle, this is instead an ambitious work of the imagination. Nitpickers have already moaned about its historical accuracy but really, they're missing the point.
There's a lot going on: an insight into the difficult, damaged marriage of Dylan and Caitlin; an exploration of a mostly platonic friendship between Dylan and Vera; a beautifully drawn portrait of an initially wary, subsequently passionate friendship between Vera and Caitlin; a delineation of the jealous, competitive relationship between Dylan and William; an example of urgent wartime courtship in the depiction of Vera and William's marriage. In fact, the only two central characters who aren't complicatedly embroiled with each other are Caitlin and William.
The principal actors all do marvellous jobs. Matthew Rhys' Dylan and Cillian Murphy's William are brilliantly opposed: the former fleshy, needy, selfish; the latter upright, composed, selfless. But it's Knightley, as Vera, and Miller, as Caitlin, who are likely to receive the bulk of the attention. Contrary to tabloid gossip, there is no lesbian love scene—not even much of a hint at one—but, perhaps by way of consolation, both girls deliver their finest performances to date.
Miller is hugely affecting as Caitlin: a tempestuous combination of blowsy and vulnerable, jaded and hopeful. And Knightley is luminous as the beloved Vera, beautifully shot by Maybury and his cinematographer, Jonathan Freeman. When we first meet her character, she's singing for a crowd in a tube station while the Blitz rages outside. It's a fantastic sequence—Knightley's face in close-up is as transporting and iconic a cinematic image as one could hope to see in 2008. No wonder Vera caused such a rumpus.
