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Four play

Deborah Ross

Wednesday, 18th June 2008

The Edge of Love
15, Nationwide

Anyway, Vera, who had known Dylan as a teenager, bumps into him in a London pub and the two reconnect, even though Dylan is now married to Caitlin and Vera is being wooed by William, a captain in the army. When William goes off to war, the remaining three move to Wales where they continue to discuss endlessly what they mean to each other, sometimes while in the bath and sometimes not. The three experience war, marriage, parenthood, betrayal, abortion and poverty, and still only endlessly discuss what they mean to each other, sometimes while in the bath and sometimes not. I bet they wished they’d had a telly, and that Big Brother was on. I know I do.

What does the film want to be? Here is what, I think, the film wants to be. Ignoring the literary aspects for a minute, it wants to be about a man in love with two women — ‘bohemian’ and ‘free-spirited’ women, needless to say — who, in turn, form an intense friendship which threatens to push them all over the edge; the edge of love. Fair enough, but the love is never felt and neither is any intensity. They could all be shopping in Debenhams. The director, John Maybury, takes an entirely static approach, and the characters are also entirely static, refusing to grow up no matter what. Sienna Miller — who is probably most famous for being pictured in Heat getting in and out of cars — just doesn’t cut it, with an accent that, I think, is meant to be Welsh but comes out as a weird Irish–Cockney. And as for Keira, well. Look, I don’t want to pick on Keira but there is one scene, when William is due back from war, and she is looking in the mirror, willing herself to look as glamorous as she did before he went away, and Keira doesn’t do it, can’t do it. She stands there as empty as anything, as if she were in a perfume ad. There are beautiful women who happen to be actresses and there are actresses, and while each have their place, sometimes you need an actress. Anne-Marie Duff. She’d have done it.

Written by the playwright Sharman Macdonald (who also happens to be Keira’s mum) and produced by Rebekah Gilbertson (the actual granddaughter of William and Vera) the whole thing has come out as a muddle, and a cold-hearted, alienating muddle at that. If this is the life of literary people, then the literary people can keep it. And that’s it for now, so toodle-oo and ciao (there I go again! I’m so talented it’s just not true).