The Edge of Love, directed by John Maybury
© Lions Gate Entertainment
I expected to hate this film; but of course if you begin a review like that, it means you mustn't have hated it at all. Why did I expect to hate it? It was something to do with its starring two supposedly stunning actresses. I thought it would be too superficial, about too-glamorous characters, a varnished version of the home front. And it was something to do with its being about a renowned poet, and my fear that it might, again, glamourise the poet's life or give no feeling of the importance of poetry. When the film opened my expectation of hating continued, as Keira Knightley came, over-lipsticked and powdered, into view.
It didn't turn out quite to plan, though, so I ended up as disappointed as one always is when hatred's unfulfilled. I quite liked this film. Yes, there are flaws in it, and it has limitations: it's given away by its small scale, the budget not stretching to produce a jury in the courtroom, for instance, or even barristers, so that a criminal trial had to be portrayed as though the judge asks all the questions. It was a smallness that made me feel sometimes as though I was watching one of those films made for BBC Four. A film just as well watched on DVD as in the cinema, then.
Small details intruded occasionally too. I'm as keen on stockings as the next man, perhaps more so, but arguably there is an excess of them in this film, and I found it impossible to believe that a woman who had to borrow money for food would, in Wales during the war, deliberately burn holes in her (too modern-looking) stocking with a cigarette. Worse, even, Sienna Miller couldn't decide whether Caitlin pronounced her husband Dylan's name the Welsh way, or the English, or indeed whether she herself was Welsh, Irish, or what. And would the police at that time really have protected the head of a suspect climbing into the generous back of their car? I don't think they bothered much about health and safety back then.
But I managed to forgive it all. The performances I thought were good, Keira Knightley and Sienna Miller persuading me of their friendship in spite of I thought a dodgy, over-artistic script in the first half-hour. They almost made me forget - Sienna Miller especially - that these women were too flawlessly beautiful for real life. Cillian Murphy was also not bad as Killick, the wronged husband of Vera Phillips, who goes to war and runs mad and jealous when he gets back. Matthew Rhys's performance is best, though, and this is what beat all my expectations: in a story that would have been interesting even had one of its main figures not happened to be a substantial poet, we were made to believe we saw this poet in front of us, and given insight into him. It's not a flattering portrait. Thomas comes across as selfish, child-like and self-indulgent, treacherous and cruel. But you do also understand his magnetism. What's even better is that you get some sense, some at least, of the presence of poetry in his life, the fact that it's a practical job that must some time be done, and of its importance to him. Finally, I found myself caring about all the characters, wishing that betrayal had not smashed this unusual foursome.
Yes, there was far too much singing (always a danger in films about Wales, the East End or Liverpool) yes, I was unnecessarily distracted by Suggs, and yes, the cine-style flashback at the end seemed strangely post-war and out of place. But it's a film worth watching.
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