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Movies / On DVD / The Edge of Love
The Edge of Love

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The Edge of Love (2009)

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35 %
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Reviews Counted: 52

Fresh: 18

Rotten:34

Average Rating: 5/10

Consensus: Despite effective performances from Knightley and Miller, The Edge of Love lacks a coherent narrative.

Rated: Not Rated

Runtime: 1 hr 51 mins

Genre: Dramas

Theatrical Release:2008

Synopsis: Two feisty, free-spirited women are connected by a brilliant, charismatic poet who loves them both. The passion and pathos of legendary poet Dylan Thomas (Matthew Rhys) is told through the lives... Two feisty, free-spirited women are connected by a brilliant, charismatic poet who loves them both.

The passion and pathos of legendary poet Dylan Thomas (Matthew Rhys) is told through the lives of two extraordinary women. Vera Phillips (Keira Knightley) and Dylan were each other's first loves who feel the thunderbolt once more when they unexpectedly meet in London ten years later. Caitlin (Sienna Miller) is his adventurous wife, wily at using her beauty and always up for a bit of fun.

Despite their love-rival status, the women form a surprising friendship -- and though bombs rain down on London, the trio indulge in the glory of being young, and alive. When Vera meets and marries handsome Officer William Killick (Cillian Murphy), Dylan resents his trio becoming a foursome -- and Caitlin notes it.

The collapse of their group is avoided when William gets sent away to war -- and the others move back to rural Wales. With Vera now heavily pregnant and missing a husband who never writes back, the battle between her heart and head becomes more intense. William's return instigates a confrontation that has long been brewing -- but the savagery of his attack on Dylan finally forces Vera to choose between the men in her life and the friend that she loves.

Desire and guilt are complicated by love and friendship in this real-life tale set in beautiful London and the majestic Welsh countryside. --© Official Site [More]

Starring: Keira Knightley, Sienna Miller, Cillian Murphy, Matthew Rhys

Starring: Keira Knightley, Sienna Miller, Cillian Murphy, Matthew Rhys, Simon Armstrong, Ben Batt, Geoffrey Beevers, Paul Brooke

Director: John Maybury

Director: John Maybury
Screenwriter: Sharman MacDonald
Producer: Rebekah Gilbertson, Sarah Radclyffe
Composer: Angelo Badalamenti
Studio: Capitol Films

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Release:

Jul 14, 2009

[DVD Details]
 
 
  • In the bohemian underground of World War II London, a stirring love story ignites among legendary poet Dylan Thomas (Matthew Rhys, TV's Brothers and Sisters) and the two extraordinary women who inspire him. Sienna Miller (Casanova) is Caitlin, Thomas' free-spirited wife, while Keira Knightley (Atonement) is Vera, the long-lost teenage sweetheart who later reconnects with Thomas. Despite their romantic rivalry, the two women form a surprisingly close bond. The trio is unusually blissful until Vera's husband, a handsome soldier (Cillian Murphy, Girl with a Pearl Earring), sends their uninhibited lives spiraling out of control.
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    Reviews for The Edge of Love

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    Maybury tackles the great Dylan Thomas in The Edge of Love, a speculative investigation into a cloudy period of the poet and dramatist's personal life. [Blu-ray]

    Full Review Source: Groucho Reviews | comment Comment
    07/08/09
    Peter Canavese
    Groucho Reviews

    click for full review

    Full Review Source: Movies for the Masses | comment Comment
    05/14/09
    Joseph Proimakis
    Movies for the Masses

    Ah, the London Blitz. Bombs falling, buildings on fire, people dying all around. Good times, good times.

    Full Review Source: Capital Times (Madison, WI) | comment Comment
    05/08/09
    Rob Thomas
    Capital Times (Madison, WI)
    N/R

    Click to read the article

    Full Review Source: Boston Phoenix | comment Comment
    04/23/09
    Peter Keough
    Boston Phoenix

    Unfortunately, like the murky visuals, the story is also muddled.

    Full Review Source: E! Online | comment Comment
    04/22/09
    Peter Paras
    E! Online

    A bit too arty and concerned with quasi-historical detail to catch fire as a romance (doomed or otherwise), and too yawningly familiar in its major chord plotting to set sail as a honest character ensemble.

    Full Review Source: Shared Darkness | comment Comment
    04/19/09
    Brent Simon
    Shared Darkness

    While all the pieces are there for an intriguing film, John Maybury's The Edge of Love never really becomes anything.

    Full Review Source: Playback:stl | comment Comment
    04/17/09
    Sarah Boslaugh
    Playback:stl

    The Edge of Love is literate and often lovely to look at, but unless you're requesting an off-key bohemian rhapsody, do not go gentle into that good theater.

    Full Review Source: St. Louis Post-Dispatch | comment Comment
    04/16/09
    Joe Williams
    St. Louis Post-Dispatch

    The Edge of Love holds a lot of promise in its first hour and never completely falls apart, but it's ultimately not the movie it might have been.

    Full Review Source: San Francisco Chronicle | comment Comment
    04/03/09
    Mick LaSalle
    San Francisco Chronicle
    Top Critic Icon Top Critic

    This may be Knightley's first truly mature performance. Too bad it arrives wrapped in doggerel.

    Full Review Source: Boston Globe | comment Comment
    04/02/09
    Ty Burr
    Boston Globe
    Top Critic Icon Top Critic

    Though very uneven in style and focus . . . the fraught complications among the foursome raise universal issues of freewheeling young love and friendship during wartime.

    Full Review Source: Film-Forward.com | comment Comment
    03/22/09
    Nora Lee Mandel
    Film-Forward.com

    The picture's combination of stylistic splash and pretentious turgidity makes for a long slog. It may be accurate, but by the time it drags to an end, you won't really care.

    Full Review Source: One Guy's Opinion | comment Comment
    03/22/09
    Frank Swietek
    One Guy's Opinion

    A period romance, charged with provocative undercurrents about art, war and the eternal battle of the sexes.

    Full Review Source: Boxoffice Magazine | comment Comment
    03/20/09
    Richard Mowe
    Boxoffice Magazine

    For all its vivid evocation of its characters' tomorrow-we-die bonhomie, the film finally never quite convinces viewers of its central subject: the sisterly, almost sapphic bond between Vera and Caitlin.

    Full Review Source: Washington Post | comment Comment
    03/20/09
    Ann Hornaday
    Washington Post
    Top Critic Icon Top Critic

    The movie makes for an engaging enough period piece.

    Full Review Source: New York Post | comment Comment
    03/20/09
    Kyle Smith
    New York Post
    Top Critic Icon Top Critic

    While Thomas fans will regret seeing their literary hero reduced to a generic drunk, even those awaiting the aforementioned bathtub scene will find it barely worth the effort.

    Full Review Source: New York Daily News | comment Comment
    03/20/09
    Elizabeth Weitzman
    New York Daily News
    Top Critic Icon Top Critic

    More a Gary Springer sex brawl than a Blitzkrieg bohemian romp, with Dylan mainly playing incorrigibly horny and urinating on house plants. And a court duel from nowhere, with the entire free love posse nastily at each other's throats. Paging Nancy Grace.

    Full Review Source: NewsBlaze | comment Comment
    03/20/09
    Prairie Miller
    NewsBlaze

    Booze and jealousy make a toxic cocktail, one that’s heavily imbibed with much self-lacerating gusto in the grim British drama The Edge of Love.

    Full Review Source: New York Times | comment Comment
    03/20/09
    Manohla Dargis
    New York Times
    Top Critic Icon Top Critic

    The Edge of Love is the sort of muddled melodrama that has little to say about love, or anything else.

    Full Review Source: Seattle Times | comment Comment
    03/19/09
    Moira MacDonald
    Seattle Times

    Notably only for a first act that credibly depicts a four-way relationship among friends and lovers without tilting embarrassingly toward titillation and/or soap opera.

    Full Review Source: Bryant Frazer's Deep Focus | comment Comment
    03/19/09
    Bryant Frazer
    Bryant Frazer's Deep Focus
     
     
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