"Too much time is spent making sure you admire the characters ..."

What is it that exists at the The Edge of Love? Director John Maybury offers up the possibility that love is the binding force of the universe, and that even that may not be enough to keep people together in the face of tragedy.

Against the backdrop of war-torn England and Wales, young Welsh singer Vera Phillips (Keira Knightley) runs into a childhood friend, the gifted poet Dylan Thomas (Matthew Rhys) along with his fiery wife Caitlin (Sienna Miller). The three of them are soon inseparable, bound together through mutual affection, desire, and loneliness. A soldier, William Killick (Cillian Murphy) arrives, begins to pursue and eventually marry Vera. What will become of the two young couples as they navigate their way through the murky waters of life and love?

Mostly, The Edge of Love centers on the camaraderie and close relationship between the two women, with the men filling in the periphery of their world. Men are spoken of almost as superfluous, yet fiercely loved by their women, a cavalier notion that would have been common enough in war-torn England. What drives the film in any real sense is that when faced with the very real possibility that they could die at any moment, in the midst of an air raid or explosion, the characters choose life, and all of the recklessly messy complications therein.

In a film of extremes, both in performance and attitude, Cillian Murphy's calm demeanor is the pin in the grenade, keeping things from exploding all around him. Murphy's easy grace very nearly steals the film out from under the firm grip of Knightly and Miller. But in the end, Miller turns in a fiery and scene-stealing performance as Caitlin Thomas, playing utterly uninhibited to Rhys's subtly charming Dylan Thomas. Miller signed on to the film two weeks before production began, but there's no tell-tale faltering in her performance, no hesitation. Her interactions with Knightley ring pleasingly true, and complex.

Not dramatic enough to be a war epic, not single-minded enough to be labeled a romantic film, The Edge of Love tries to be many films at once, and comes very close to doing it. The technicalities are well handled, here. The production design is lovely -- with cold, gray Wales providing an appropriately depressing backdrop to young married life, and cinematography that never pulls you out of the plot for a moment.

Much will be made of Keira Knightley's singing voice, as she does all her own singing for the film. Her voice is at once both strong and seductive, and yet the music tends to feel a bit out of place. It's almost as if the composer, Angelo Badalamenti, forgot he wasn't scoring a David Lynch film.

And yet, clocking in at nearly two hours, the film drags in the final stretch, making it seem much longer than it really is, without any real reason for it. Too much time is spent making sure you admire the characters, watching them live out the consequences of past decisions. Sympathy is a hot currency here, and sadly, it's hard to give out, as each time you begin to feel for a character, they do something to make you want to give up on them. Maybury, perhaps, utilizes this angle too often, as an audience can only be teased so long before giving up on a film entirely.

Ultimately a beautiful period piece, The Edge of Love wants to remind us that facing things together is the only way to quiet the fears we harbor within us. Love might draw us in, shake us up and leave us out in the cold once again, but without love and each other, we aren't able to cut through the noise of life to the heart of any matter. Too bad it loses sight of this message somewhere along the way.

Grade: B-

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