The Edge of Love (15)

Here's an early contender for next year's Ritzy for Best Cinematography (Jonathan Freeman).   It's less likely to be up for Film of the Year but this is still an interesting snapshot of the two women - Vera Killick and Caitlin Thomas - who struck up a loose ménage-a-trois with dissolute Welsh poet Dylan Thomas, set against the backdrop of a dark war-torn London before moving to the damp, airy Welsh coast where the shimmering tensions of their existence come to a dramatic boil.

As the film opens with a pouting, heavily made-up Vera (Keira Knightley) crooning into a microphone in an air raid shelter, before Caitlin (Sienna Miller) saunters into view in a haze of fag smoke and feisty, bohemian spirit, it's clear the focus is on the women rather than the man in their life.   Indeed, Cillian Murphy as Knightley's soldier lover William, commands as much screen space as Matthew Rhys' Thomas.   What's also clear is that Vera and Dylan's past as childhood sweethearts spells trouble for Vera and William's marital future.

What is less clear is the screenplay by Knightley's playwright mother Sharman Macdonald.   The apparently intense, turbulent but enduring friendship between the two women lacks focus in spite of Sienna Miller acting her socks off (and her knickers in some carefree cartwheeling on the beach) in conveying Caitlin's earthy, sparky and sensuous character.   Knightley gives her usual serviceable performance, with her dodgy Welsh accent redeemed by a very capable singing voice.   Cillian Murphy is a most convincing English officer and the real emotional crux of the drama while Rhys' Dylan is too peripheral, a shame given his charismatic presence.

- Ashley Franklin