The Edge of Love

This lifeless period romance from director John Maybury (The Jacket) plays fast and loose with the life of Welsh poet Dylan Thomas around the time of World War II. Matthew Rhys gives the only credible performance as Thomas (he at least does a decent drunk), but The Edge of Love is more concerned with the friendship between his free-spirited wife (Sienna Miller) and the childhood friend (Keira Knightley), for whom he still carries a torch. Most of the film plays like a Blitz-themed spread in Vogue, as Knightley, Miller, and Cillian Murphy, as a persistent soldier who falls for Knightley, pose in a variety of 1940s hats and frocks. The Edge of Love never inspires interest in any of its characters, a big problem if one of your characters is actually very interesting.