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. recommended