Hey, how about Keira Knightley’s collarbone, eh? Eh? Pretty
sharp. Yep. That collarbone is pret-ty sharp. Just out there, standing
and delivering, all taut and curved like Robin Hood’s longbow or some
shit. In fact, have you ever seen Keira Knightley’s collarbone and
Robin Hood’s longbow in the same room at the same time? If you look up
“Robin Hood’s longbow” in the dictionary, it’s just a picture of Keira
Knightley’s collarbone. I swear. Try it. The dictionary never lies.
I bring all this up because The Edge of Love—a
kinda-sorta Dylan Thomas biopic, kinda—is a pretty, thin, elegant
thing (hey, like Keira Knightley’s collarbone!) that doesn’t accomplish
much beyond being a vehicle for KK’s aforementioned C, Sienna Miller’s
ability to look good in a hat, and my desire to go back in time and
clutch Dylan Thomas to my heaving bosom. Or, at the very, very least,
stay where I am in time and perform a similar bosom-clutching on
Matthew-Rhys-as-Dylan-Thomas, whose Welshy curls and drunken loutish
charisma make Cillian Murphy (as Thomas’s half friend/half rival
William Killick) look like the Creature from the Waxy, Moon-Faced
Lagoon.
Let me back up. The Edge of Love is a semi-
fictionalized
account of producer Rebekah Gilbertson’s grandparents, Killick and Vera
Phillips (Knightley). Phillips was a childhood friend (and, according
to this film, first love) of Thomas’s and reconnected with the poet and
his party-time wife, Caitlin (Miller), during the London Blitz of 1940.
The film is not unpleasant—the foursome have smashing times and
wear perfect outfits and occasionally convey an enthralling
tension—but the script is frail and earnest (“All you have are
stories in your head. Words. And I have to be real,” bleats
Knightley in a generally charming Welsh lilt), with much sliding on and
off of stockings and tepid, refracted, soft-focus lovemaking. It’s a
pretty framework—a clavicle, a cad, some lipstick and
poetry—and precious little more. 
Why can’t these movie makers learn that you need to put something more in these films? Something big, and important, like freedom. Remember 300? Guys fighting, no pants, except for the sad little Persians who fight won’t fight unless you put pants on them. But then it became something more. Than shirts vs skins except it was pants vs no pants. They added something. They made it a film about FREEDOM and that turned it into a big, important movie that leaves you satisfied and uplifted. Pow!
I saw this in London last fall. Your review is spot on.
thanks for the nice collar story report… any body want to review a slasher movie?\
the razor scene in Eatsern Promises is GRIM>
a real ballbuster.
Take the last paragraph, expand it so it includes an idea, make it three more paragraphs long, delete your original first 2 paragraphs, and bang! you’d actually have done your job this week.
I heard better musing on KK’s collarbone from a child in the audience at Pride and Prejudice, and that was inane and I slapped her so she’d shut up and let us watch the movie. You know, like it was important.