The Edge of Love

The Edge of Love (John Maybury, 2009) C-

Um. I'm not even sure what the thesis is here, if any, other than that Dylan Thomas was an insufferable lout. Certainly it doesn't work as a character piece, consisting as it does of unpleasant people doing boring things; the basic set-up is a pouty romantic and a needy pragmatist squabbling half-heartedly over a self-centered void, which sure isn't my idea of a good time. Cillian Murphy drops in occasionally and livens things up just by virtue of being an interesting actor, unlike the other three, but this is just brain-stabbingly dour stuff -- who could possibly have been passionate about this portrait of a pretentious starving artist and his two miserable groupies? There's one interesting moment early, when a tender love scene starts to literally fragment to foreshadow the rest of the plot, while Angelo Badalamenti's typically gorgeous score tenderly caresses us, but other than that, yeesh.